S(«BH 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


from 
CARL  SANDBURG'S  LIBRARY 


0,    ^aXLZftVTLu^ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/details/lincolnstoriestoOObate 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


DAVID  HOMER  BATES 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

TOLD  BY  HIM  in  the 
^yifCilitary  Office  in  the  War  T>epartment 

DURING  the  CIVIL  WAR 


RECORDED  BY  0716  of  the  j(jsteners 

DAVID  HOMER  BATES 

Cipher  Operator 
and  Author  of'^Jljncohi  in  the  Telegraph  Office^^ 


WILLIAM    EDWIN    RUDGE,INC. 
1926 


COPYRIGHT,  1926 

BY 

DAVID  HOMER  BATES 


cro-yvs 


FOREWORD 

BY  CHARLES  T.  WHITE 
OF  THE  NEW  YORK  HERALD-TRIBUNE  STAFF 

i      Another  Lincoln  book! 

J  The  indexers  have  been  saying  it  every  year  to 
'^  the  seemingly  endless  procession  of  Lincoln  books, 
ti  and  the  end  is  not  yet! 

This  time  the  entry  is  "Lincoln's  Stories  Told  by 
>^Him  in  the  Military  Telegraph  Office,"  recorded 
^  by  one  of  the  Listeners,  David  Homer  Bates,  and 

y^  the  book  is  a  mate  to  "Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph 
^  Office,"  which  years  ago  established  Mr.  Bates 

^  with  the  reading  public  as  an  attractive  writer  and 

^  accurate  historian. 
^       As  this  book,  like  its  predecessor,  derives  its 

l>  chief  value  from  its  authenticity,  there  is  an  ap- 
propriate place  at  the  beginning  for  Civil  War 
J)  data,  herewith  introduced: 

ji      Eight  days  after  Sumter  was  fired  on,  the  fol- 
)i- lowing  message  was  flashed  over  the  telegraph 
^ wires  from  Washington: 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


April  22,  1861. 
To  David  McCargo^ 

Superintendent  of  Telegraphs, 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company, 
Altoona,  Pa. 

Send  four  of  your  best  operators  to  Washington  at 
once  prepared  to  enter  government  telegraph  service  for 
the  war. 

(Signed)  Andrew  Carnegie, 
Assistant  General  Manager y 
Military  Railroads  and  Telegraphs, 

Altoona,  Pa.,  April  23,  1861. 
To  Andrew  Carnegie, 

War  Department,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Message  received.  Strouse  from  Mifflin,  Brown  from 
Pittsburgh,  O'Brien  from  Greensburg,  and  Bates  from 
Altoona,  will  start  for  Washington  at  once. 

(Signed)  David  McCargo, 
Superintendent  of  Telegraphs. 

In  response  to  Mr.  Carnegie's  message,  the  four 
telegraph  operators  arrived  in  Washington  on 
April  25th  and  reported  to  him  at  the  War  Depart- 
ment, where  a  temporary  office  had  been  opened  at 
the  head  of  the  first  floor  staircase. 

Three  of  those  operators  are  long  since  dead. 

The  fourth,  David  Homer  Bates,  died  June  1 5, 
1926,  in  his  83rd  year.  Mr.  Bates  became  Man- 
ager of  the  War  Department  Telegraph  Office, 
where  he  remained  until  the  close  of  the  Civil 
War,  meeting  President  Lincoln  every  day  and 
many  nights  during  the  succeeding  four  years  until 
the  day  of  his  assassination.  He  was  on  duty  all  that 
dreadful  night  transmitting  the  hourly  bulletins 

-4. 2  }E^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

written  by  Secretary  Stanton  at  Lincoln's  death 
bed,  addressed  to  General  John  A.  Dix  in  New 
Yorkj  for  distribution  by  him  to  the  press. 

Mr.  Bates  recently  yielded  to  the  persuasion  of 
friends,  who  learned  he  had  a  considerable  fund  of 
unpublished  stories^  conversations,  and  striking  in- 
cidents, gathering  up  all  the  Lincoln  story  waifs, 
with  a  new  book  in  mind. 

And  why  not  another  Lincoln  book,  when  it  is 
a  dependable  contribution  to  Lincoln  history? 

The  Lincoln  story  is  not  yet  fully  told.  We  shall 
have  more  books  about  Lincoln  as  writers  discover 
letters  and  documents  revealing  new  light  on 
America's  most  fascinating  character. 

Mr.  Bates'  latest  book  is  not  intended  as  a  study, 
or  an  analysis.  It  is  supplemental  in  character, mak- 
ing the  picture  of  Lincoln  truer  to  life. 

The  years  are  revealing  Lincoln  to  humanity  as 
the  greatest  spiritual  force  of  modern  times — per- 
haps the  best  proof  that  the  unseen  is  the  eternal 
thing. 

"Douglas  is  nothing;  I  am  nothing;  Truth  is 
everything!"  exclaimed  this  universal  man.  As 
people  better  learn  to  ally  themselves  to  Truth,  the 
living  Lincoln  is  more  eagerly  accepted  as  an  ade- 
quate interpretation  of  their  ideals. 

The  soul  which  found  growth  in  plucking  a 
thorn  and  planting  a  rose  blazed  an  illumined  path 
for  men  of  good  will. 

Whitman  said  if  the  ancient  Greeks  had  had  a 
man  like  Lincoln  they  would  have  made  a  god  of 
him;  Emerson,  that  if  he  had  ruled  in  a  period  of 

-4  3  ]^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

less  facility  for  printing,  he  would  have  become 
mythological  in  a  few  years,  like  Aesop  j  Ingersoll, 
that  he  was  the  gentlest  memory  in  the  world  ^ 
Stanton,  in  the  death  chamber  in  the  Peterson 
house  across  the  street  from  Ford's  Theatre  as  the 
strong  heart  ceased  beating,  exclaimed,  "Now  he 
belongs  to  the  ages! '' 

A  mosaic  of  beauty^  these  tributes,  and  the  fab- 
ric has  been  growing  more  beautiful  with  the 
years. 

There  came  a  turn  in  history — something  nec- 
essary for  progress  — when  an  Asiatic  Jewish 
peasant  in  the  Upper  Room  girded  himself  with  a 
towel  and  set  an  example  of  brotherhood. 

Lincoln,  almost  from  Nancy  Hanks's  knee, 
caught  the  vision  of  the  Upper  Room.  Destiny  led 
across  bloody  battlegrounds,  but  he  would  rather 
have  chosen  the  conference  table  and  the  paths  of 
peace. 

Lincoln  was  a  modern-minded  man — the  spir- 
itual pioneer  of  a  system  of  education  yet  to  bcj  a 
system  of  education  whose  objective  will  be  to 
Give  rather  than  to  Get! 

Something  happened  in  the  Syrian  Upper  Room 
to  make  more  understandable  the  democracy  of 
lovcj  and  something  happened  in  the  War  De- 
partment Telegraph  Office  working  toward  the 
same  end. 

A  rare  occasion,  surely,  when  "Tom"  Eckert, 
Homer  Bates,  Charlie  Tinker,  "AP'  Chandler, 
and  Bender  Wilson — young,  intense,  enduring — 
worked  for  the  crushing  of  the  slaveholders'  re- 


NCOLN  S'r    OKIES 


bellion  and  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  These 
young  men  through  four  bitter  years  labored  shoul- 
der to  shoulder  with  Lincoln. 

Mr.  Bates  testified  that  Lincoln  was  a  cheerful, 
genial  worker,  with  the  habit  of  taking  a  clean 
sheet  of  paper  and  writing  legibly,  without  inter- 
lineations or  erasures,  dispatches  to  generals,  re- 
prieves for  the  condemned,  state  papers  of  great 
importance,  and  even  the  first  draft  of  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation — all  under  the  eyes  of  the 
"Knights  of  the  Key"  as  they  clicked  off  a  never- 
ending  stream  of  messages  incident  to  the  conduct 
of  a  great  war. 

Genial,  serene,  happy,  and  easy-working — so 
testify  Bates,  Eckert,  Chandler,  and  Tinker.  And 
who  can  tell  about  it  all  better  than  Mr.  Bates  with 
his  diary,  and  his  retentive  memory? 

John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay  in  an  official 
way  had  day-by-day  contact  with  Lincoln,  but 
they  were  buffer  men,  there  to  attend  to  people  5 
there  to  dam  the  flood  of  importunates;  there  to 
weigh  the  merits  of  the  demands  upon  the  Presi- 
dent j  to  write  and  copy  documents;  in  brief,  to 
see  to  it  that  their  chief's  time  was  not  wasted  on 
comparatively  unimportant  things. 

Lincoln,  naturally  secretive^  maintained  in  the 
White  House,  and  even  with  his  secretaries,  a  be- 
fitting reserve  and  cautiousness,  a  degree  of  secre- 
tiveness,  early  discovered  by  Nicolay  and  Hay,  and 
conformed  to  as  a  settled  feature  of  their  secre- 
tarial work. 

A  contemporary,  Alexander  K.  McClure,  of 

-4  s  ]>- 


NCOLN  STORIES 


the  Philadelphia  Times^  was  so  impressed  by  this 
characteristic  of  self-containment,  that  he  was 
prompted  to  write  that  while  Nicolay  and  Hay 
knew  Lincoln  as  President^  they  did  not  know  him 
as  a  man. 

The  telegraphers  of  the  War  Department  knew 
Lincoln  as  a  man.  They  possessed  the  keys  to 
things!  With  a  cipher  code  of  their  own  invention 
in  daily  use  for  important  matters,  they  knew  about 
every  major  matter  under  way,  or  contemplated, 
in  the  Northern  armyj  and  they  were  aware  of 
much  of  what  was  transpiring  in  the  Confederate 
government,  thus  sustaining  a  grasp  of  current  do- 
ings and  an  intercourse  with  the  President  not  so 
fully  enjoyed  by  the  President's  own  secretaries, 
for  Lincoln  spent  more  of  his  waking  hours  in  the 
War  Department  Telegraph  Office  than  in  any 
other  place. 

Lincoln  felt  "safe''  in  the  Telegraph  Office. 
The  operators  were  his  "boys."  Lincoln  called  Mr. 
Bates  "Homer."  Lincoln  once  addressed  him  as 
"the  young  man  with  the  sore  neck,"  Mrs.  Eckert 
having  kept  a  mustard  plaster  on  all  night,  so  that 
in  the  morning  the  affected  spot  was  fiery  red.  He 
was  somewhat  partial  in  his  regard  for  him  be- 
cause of  that  young  man's  ability  in  framing  the 
government's  cipher  code,  with  a  corresponding 
ability  to  decipher  the  code  of  the  enemy,  an  ex- 
ceptional asset,  giving  the  Union  government  an 
inestimable  advantage. 

The  possession  of  the  Confederates'  cipher  code 
enabled  Colonel  Baker,  head  of  the  Secret  Service, 

-°-€{  6  }^°- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

to  foil  the  Copperhead  plot  to  burn  New  York 
City,  and  to  trap  correspondence  between  the  Con- 
federates in  Richmond  and  their  allies  in  Mon- 
treal and  Halifax. 

Lincoln  had  perfect  confidence  in  the  capable 
young  men  in  the  telegraph  office,  and  his  fond- 
ness was  shown  by  an  unusual  degree  of  unreserve 
as  soon  as  he  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  operating 
room.  They  were  dubbed  "The  Sacred  Three''  by 
Albert  Johnson,  Stanton's  Private  Secretary. 

There  it  was  that  Lincoln  unbent — shook  him- 
self free,  as  far  as  possible,  from  his  increasing 
burdens.  The  telegraph  office  came  nearest  any- 
thing to  being  a  playground,  a  cameraderie  ren- 
dezvous. 

One  thing  was  specially  noted  by  the  telegra- 
phers— Lincoln  was  without  vices,  great  or  small. 
He  was  meticulous  as  to  truth-telling;  did  not  use 
prof  anity,or  even  by  innuendo  traduce  an  enemy  or 
opponent.  He  did  not  drink  intoxicating  liquor,  or 
use  tobacco.  Washington  during  the  Civil  War  was 
a  very  "wet"  city  of  75,000,  with  about  3,600 
drinking  resorts.  Nearly  every  one  drank,  and  the 
men  who  did  not  smoke  generally  chewed  tobacco. 

"If  I  don't  drink,  it  won't  hurt  me,"  was  Lin- 
coln's answer  to  a  convivial  friend  who  was  sure 
a  proffered  glass  of  a  celebrated  brand  would  not 
"hurt"  him. 

"By  Jinks! "  Lincoln  exclaimed  one  day,  under 
pressure,  in  the  telegraph  office.  Almost  instantly 
he  looked  self-accused  and  apologetic.  To  the  sug- 
gestion that  "By  jinks!"  was  not  swearing,  he  re- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


plied  that  according  to  what  his  mother  told  him 
when  a  child  it  was  swearing^  and  wrong.  Cer- 
tainly a  tribute  to  Nancy  Hanks,  sleeping  in  the 
Little  Pigeon  Creek  Baptist  graveyard  in  south- 
ern Indiana. 

That  he  kindly  remembered  his  father,  blun- 
dering Tom  Lincoln,  was  revealed  one  day  when 
he  quoted  him. 

"My  father  used  to  say,  'Hug  a  bad  bargain,' " 
said  Lincoln,  with  the  air  of  one  who  long  ago  had 
accepted  it  as  a  rule  of  life.  (In  Gilbert  Tracy's 
book.) 

So  Lincoln  became  a  study  to  these  young  men 
in  the  telegraph  office.  They  stood  by  as  the  pres- 
sure increased,  and  noted  that  he  did  not  change 
his  main  direction  in  anything. 

When  he  first  assumed  the  reins  of  government, 
his  cabinet  associates  apparently  shared  the  com- 
mon judgment  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  qualify 
under  the  responsibility.  There  was  a  disturbing 
suggestion  that  he  turn  over  matters  of  large  con- 
cern to  Seward  or  Chase.  But  the  far-seeing  man 
smiled  and  pursued  his  course.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  Civil  War  he  seems  to  have  been  more 
grossly  underassessed  than  any  of  our  Presidents, 
while  at  the  end  of  the  period  he  came  nearer  than 
any  other  to  being  an  object  of  adoration. 

The  men  in  the  telegraph  office  at  the  beginning 
of  the  President's  administration  sensed  the  gen- 
eral distrust  of  his  ability,  but  it  was  not  long 
before  any  apprehensions  on  this  score  were  dis- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

sipated.  Within  a  year  he  was  the  recognized  com- 
petent captain  of  the  ship. 

"Tom"  Eckert  never  could  forget  what  Lincoln 
did  for  him,  for  if  ever  a  man  was  saved  from  the 
discard  it  was  he. 

Another  story  of  surpassing  interest  is  that  Lin- 
coln wrote  the  first  draft  of  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  at  Eckert's  desk  in  the  cipher  room 
of  the  War  Department  telegraph  office,  ten  feet 
from  where  Homer  Bates  regularly  sat.  Describ- 
ing the  framing  of  this  historic  document,  Major 
Eckert  says: 

"Lincoln  would  look  out  of  the  window  a  little 
and  then  put  his  pen  to  paper,  but  he  did  not  write 
much  at  a  time.  He  would  study  between  times, 
and  when  he  had  made  up  his  mind  he  would  put 
down  a  line  or  two,  and  then  sit  quiet  for  a  few 
minutes." 

And  this  is  part  of  the  picture  of  the  first  draft 
of  the  document  that  gave  freedom  to  four  million 
slaves! 

There  is  a  goodly  company  of  these  intimate 
stories,  little  narratives  saturated  with  wit  and  wis- 
dom, and  all  more  or  less  directly  connected  with 
war  history. 

It  will  not  be  easy  for  the  reader  to  put  the  vol- 
ume down  once  it  is  begun.  The  stories  carry  an 
overpowering  sense  of  their  truth. 

In  1907,  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  Abraham's  sur- 
viving son,  now  a  resident  of  Washington,  after 
reading  the  magazine  story  by  Mr.  Bates  wrote 
him  a  letter  in  which  he  said: 

-4  9  ]^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

"I  have  just  read  in  the  Stpttmbtr  Century  your 
concluding  article  with  a  personal  interest  that  no 
one  can  have  but  myself.  I  cannot  refrain  from 
telling  you  how  much  I  have  been  affected  by  the 
feeling  you  have  shown  of  love  and  regard  for  my 
father.  It  is  very  gratifying  to  me.  I  must  thank 
you  earnestly  for  the  pleasure  I  have  had  in  your 
articles.  They  bring  back  very  vividly  the  most 
exciting  days  of  my  life,  and  the  reminiscences  of 
my  father  make  him  seem  to  be  alive  again." 

The  lovers  of  Lincoln  are  sure  to  feel  deeply 
grateful  to  Mr.  Bates  for  putting  these  little  stories 
into  permanent  form. 

C.  T.  W. 

New  York  City, 

December,  1925. 


-4{  10  }> 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Lincoln  a  Daily  Visitor 

DURING  the  Civil  War,  April,  1861,  to 
April,  1865,  Lincoln  spent  more  of  his 
waking  hours  in  the  War  Department 
Telegraph  Office  than  anywhere  else  outside  of 
the  White  House. 

He  walked  over  every  morning,  noon,  and  eve- 
ning, and  made  the  Telegraph  Office  his  rendez- 
vous to  get  the  latest  news  from  the  armies  at  the 
front. 

While  waiting  there  he  talked  freely  with 
Major  Thomas  T.  Eckert,  our  Chief,  and  with  the 
Cipher  Operators,  Charles  A.  Tinker,  Albert  B. 
Chandler,  and  myself.  The  first  three  are  long 
since  dead. 

Lincoln  interspersed  his  talk  with  frequent 
stories,  which  were  duly  recorded  by  us  and  which 
are  reproduced  here.  They  are  therefore  undoubt- 
edly authentic. 

Captain  D.  V.  Purington,  of  Chicago,  in  a  letter 
to  the  Century  Magazine^  says,  "Mr.  Bates'  ref- 
erence in  Century  (July,  1907),  to  the  fact  that 
not  all  of  the  stories  attributed  to  him  were  really 
his,  calls  to  my  mind  an  incident  that  corroborates 
Mr.  Bates'  position. 

--^{  1 1  ^^«- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

"Early  in  1865,  Mr.  Lincoln  visited  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  and  the  Army  of  the  James.  Gen- 
eral Godfrey  Weitzel  was  at  that  time  command- 
ing the  25th  Army  Corps,  and  Dutch  Gap  was 
within  the  limit  of  his  command.  Mr.  Lincoln 
desired  to  see  this  particular  work  of  the  army 
engineers.  Arrangements  were  made  and  he  was 
escorted  from  Corps  Headquarters  by  General 
Weitzel  and  his  entire  staff,  of  which  the  writer 
was  a  junior  member.  On  the  return  of  the  party, 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  invited  to  lunch  with  the  General 
and  his  staff.  It  was  my  privilege  to  be  seated  at  the 
table  immediately  opposite  the  President,  and  to 
listen  to  the  conversation  between  him  and  Gen- 
eral Weitzel.  After  we  had  all  enjoyed  some  story 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  (which  I  am  sorry  to  have  for- 
gotten). General  Weitzel  said,  'Mr.  President, 
about  what  proportion  of  the  stories  attributed  to 
you  really  belong  to  you? '  Mr.  Lincoln  replied,  'I 
do  not  know;  but  of  those  I  have  seen,  I  should 
say  about  one-half.' " 

Eight  days  after  Sumter  was  fired  on,  I  was 
called  to  Washington  by  a  telegram  to  David  Mc- 
Cargo,  Superintendent  of  Telegraphs,  Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad  Company,  from  Andrew  Carnegie, 
Assistant  General  Manager  of  U.  S.  Military  Rail- 
roads and  Telegraphs,  dated  April  22,  1861,  to 
serve  as  an  operator  during  the  Civil  War.  I  was 
Manager  of  the  War  Department  Telegraph  Of- 
fice shortly  after  that  time  until  the  close  of  the 
war,  during  which  period  I  met  Mr.  Lincoln  every 
day  and  many  nights. 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Mr.  Lincoln  once  said  he  was  not  a  manufac- 
turer but  a  retailer  of  stories  and  that  he  could  not 
break  himself  of  the  habit,  as  he  found  it  difficult 
to  refrain  from  clinching  an  argument  or  empha- 
sizing a  good  point  by  means  of  a  story,  and  if  it 
were  not  for  these  occasional  stories  he  said  he 
would  die. 

Lincoln's  story-telling  met  his  universal  need, 
and  the  fact  that  he  seemed  to  see  the  humorous 
side  of  life  has  caused  many  historians  to  wonder 
at  the  secret  of  his  marvelous  character. 

Seldom  Out  of  W ashington 

During  the  War  Mr.  Lincoln  was  absent  from 
Washington  several  times.  In  1862,  he  visited 
General  Winfield  Scott  at  West  Point,  and  he  went 
to  Antietam  to  see  General  McClellan,  and  then 
to  Fredericksburg  to  visit  Generals  Hooker  and 
Burnside.  He  was  at  City  Point  several  times  to 
meet  General  Grant,  and  on  April  4,  1 865,  he  vis- 
ited Richmond.  He  went  to  Gettysburg  in  No- 
vember, 1863,  to  make  his  now  well  known  ad- 
dress. In  February,  1865,  he  was  at  Hampton 
Roads  to  meet  the  Confederate  Peace  Commis- 
sioners. Except  on  these  and  one  or  two  other  occa- 
sions, he  spent  all  his  time  in  Washington  during 
the  Civil  War.  He  often  visited  the  Soldiers'  Home 
and  Military  Camps  and  was  present  at  the  Battle 
of  Fort  Stevens  in  July,  1864,  the  only  time  a 
President  of  the  United  States  was  actually  on  the 
field  of  battle  under  the  guns  of  the  enemy.  He  was 
always  genial  and  not  melancholy  as  so  often  rep- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

resented,  and  he  would  laugh  heartily  at  the  end 
of  a  story.  Lincoln's  enunciation,  like  his  hand- 
writing, was  clear  and  distinct.  His  voice  was  of 
tenor  quality  rather  than  low-pitched,  conveying 
tenderness,  sympathy  and  neighborliness. 

It  was  Lincoln's  habit  to  read  the  wire  messages 
aloud,  and  when  he  came  across  the  name  of  Jef- 
ferson Davis  or  Robert  E.  Lee,  he  would  say, 
Jeffy  D.,"  or  "Bobby''  Lee. 


C( 


The  First  Joke 

The  first  witticism  I  recall  was  in  the  summer 
of  1 86 1.  While  waiting  for  the  unraveling  of 
dispatches  from  the  front,  Lincoln  would  often 
recline  upon  an  old  hair  cloth  lounge.  One  evening 
he  got  up  hurriedly  and  flicked  from  the  lapel  of 
his  coat  a  small  insect  known  to  scientists  as  "cimex 
lectularius,"  in  other  words,  a  bed  bug.  He  re- 
marked, "Well,  boys,  I  have  been  very  fond  of 
that  old  lounge,  but  as  it  has  become  a  little  buggy 
I  fear  I  must  stop  using  it." 

The  Beautiful  Ellsworth  hetter 

The  first  great  shock  to  President  Lincoln  after 
reaching  Washington  was  the  killing  of  his  gallant 
young  friend.  Colonel  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth,  at 
Alexandria,  Virginia,  on  May  24,  1861,  by  the 
proprietor  of  the  Marshall  House,  from  whose 
roof  Colonel  Ellsworth  removed  a  Rebel  flag. 
Ellsworth,  little  more  than  a  boy,  magnetic,  highly 
intelligent,  was  like  a  son  to  Lincoln,  having  been 
a  student  in  his  law  office  in  Springfield,  and  ac- 

-4^  i4}E^=" 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


companied  him  to  Washington.  The  young  officer 
almost  unaided  had  raised  a  full  regiment  in  New 
York  City,  rushed  them  to  Washington,  drilled 
them  and  inspired  them  with  his  own  intrepidity. 
Early  on  the  morning  of  the  24th  when  I  de- 
livered to  him  a  dispatch  announcing  the  death  of 
his  gallant  young  friend  he  was  terribly  grief- 
stricken.  Of  all  the  thousands  of  eloquent  expres- 
sions which  in  sermon,  address,  poem  or  editorial 
the  tragedy  inspired  throughout  the  North,  none 
was  so  beautiful  as  the  letter  from  President  Lin- 
coln to  the  bereaved  parents  in  Mechanickville, 
New  York: 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  25,  1861. 
To  the  Father  and  Mother  of  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth, 
My  Dear  Sir  and  Madam : 

In  the  untimely  loss  of  your  noble  son,  our  affliction 
here  is  scarcely  less  than  your  own.  So  much  of  promised 
usefulness  to  one's  country  and  of  bright  hopes  for  one's 
self  and  friends,  have  rarely  been  so  suddenly  darkened 
as  in  his  fall.  In  size,  in  years,  and  in  youthful  appear- 
ance, a  boy  only,  his  power  to  command  men  was  sur- 
passingly great.  This  power,  combined  with  a  fine  intel- 
lect, and  indomitable  energy  and  a  taste  altogether 
military,  constituted  in  him,  as  seemed  to  me,  the  best 
natural  talent,  in  that  department,  I  ever  knew.  And  yet 
he  was  singularly  modest  and  deferential  in  social  inter- 
course. My  acquaintance  with  him  began  less  than  two 
years  ago  j  yet  through  the  latter  half  of  the  intervening 
period  it  was  as  intimate  as  the  disparity  of  our  ages  and 
my  engrossing  engagements  would  permit.  To  me,  he 
appeared  to  have  no  indulgences  or  pastimes  j  and  I 
never  heard  him  utter  a  profane  or  intemperate  word. 
What  was  conclusive  of  his  good  heart,  he  never  forgot 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

his  parents.  The  honors  he  labored  for  so  laudably,  and, 
in  the  sad  end,  so  gallantly  gave  his  life,  he  meant  for 
them  no  less  than  for  himself. 

In  the  hope  that  it  may  be  no  intrusion  upon  the 
sacredness  of  your  sorrow,  I  have  ventured  to  address 
you  this  tribute  to  the  memory  of  my  young  friend,  and 
your  brave  and  early  fallen  child. 

May  God  give  you  the  consolation  which  is  beyond 
all  earthly  power. 

Sincerely  your  friend  in  common  affliction, 

A.  Lincoln. 

Ellsworth  only  two  days  before  had  written  this 
letter  to  his  parents: 

HEADQUARTERS,  1ST  ZOUAVES,  CAMP  LINCOLN, 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  23,  1861. 
My  dear  Father  and  Mother: 

The  Regiment  is  ordered  to  move  across  the  river 
tonight. 

We  have  no  means  of  knowing  what  reception  we  are 
to  meet  with.  I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  our  en- 
trance to  the  City  of  Alexandria  will  be  hotly  contested. 

Should  this  happen,  my  dear  parents,  it  may  be  my 
lot  to  be  injured  in  some  manner.  Whatever  may  hap- 
pen, cherish  this  consolation  that  I  am  engaged  in  the 
performance  of  a  sacred  duty  and  tonight  thinking  over 
the  probabilities  of  tomorrow  and  the  occurrences  of  the 
past,  I  am  perfectly  content  to  accept  whatever  my  for- 
tune may  be,  confident  that  He  who  noteth  even  the 
fate  of  a  sparrow  will  have  some  purpose  even  in  the 
fate  of  one  like  me. 

My  darling  and  everloved  parents,  goodbye,  God 
bless,  protect,  and  care  for  you. 

Elmer. 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Btdl  Run  Bulletins 

In  July,  1 86 1 J  the  first  severe  reverse  of  the 
Civil  War  occurred  at  the  Battle  of  Bull  Run,  and 
McDowell's  forces  were  pushed  back  from  Ma- 
nassas Junction. 

When  this  battle  was  fought,  the  military  tel- 
egraph-line had  reached  Fairfax  Court-House, 
which  I  visited  two  days  before  the  battle  with 
Mr.  Carnegie,  and  an  improvised  office  had  been 
opened  at  that  point.  Communication  with  Gen- 
eral McDowell's  headquarters  at  the  front  was 
maintained  by  means  of  a  corps  of  mounted  cour- 
iers, organized  by  Andrew  Carnegie.  These  cour- 
iers passed  back  and  forth  all  day  long  between 
Fairfax  and  the  front.  Lincoln  hardly  left  his  seat 
in  our  office  and  waited  with  deep  anxiety  for  each 
succeeding  dispatch.  At  times  during  the  awful 
day.  General  Winfield  Scott  would  confer  with 
the  President  or  Secretary  Cameron  for  a  short 
period  and  then  depart  to  put  into  effect  some  ur- 
gent measures  for  protecting  the  Capitol. 

All  the  morning  and  well  along  into  the  after- 
noon, General  McDowell's  telegrams  were  more 
or  less  encouraging,  and  Lincoln  and  his  advisers 
waited  with  eager  hope,  believing  that  Beauregard 
was  being  pushed  back;  but  all  at  once  dispatches 
ceased  coming.  At  first  this  was  taken  to  mean  that 
McDowell  was  moving  farther  away  from  the 
telegraph,  and  then,  as  the  silence  became  pro- 
longed, a  strange  fear  seized  upon  the  assembled 
watchers  that  perhaps  all  was  not  well.  Suddenly 

-4, 17}^°- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

the  telegraph  instrument  became  alive  again,  and 
the  short  sentence  "Our  army  is  retreating"  was 
spelled  out  in  the  Morse  characters.  This  brief  an- 
nouncement was  followed  by  meager  details  con- 
cerning the  first  great  disaster  that  had  befallen 
our  troops  and  the  panic  that  followed. 

The  crowded  telegraph  office  was  quickly  de- 
serted by  all  except  the  operators,  although  Lincoln 
returned  at  intervals  until  after  mid-night,  shortly 
before  which  the  outlying  office  at  Fairfax  Court- 
House  was  abandoned.  When  morning  dawned, 
our  demoralized  troops  began  to  straggle,  and  then 
to  pour  in  in  an  ever  increasing  stream  of  fright- 
ened humanity  over  Long  Bridge  into  Washing- 
ton, the  immediate  capture  of  which  then  seemed 
to  be,  and  really  was,  within  the  power  of  the  Con- 
federate army,  if  only  they  had  pressed  their  ad- 
vantage. Consternation  reigned  supreme,  and  all 
realized  that  a  great  crisis  of  the  war,  the  next 
after  Sumter,  was  upon  us. 

The  Telegram  'Drawer 

Lincoln's  habit  was  to  go  immediately  to  the 
drawer  each  time  he  came  into  our  room  and  read 
over  the  telegrams,  beginning  at  the  top,  until  he 
came  to  the  one  he  had  seen  at  his  last  previous 
visit.  When  this  point  was  reached  he  frequently 
said,  "Well,  boys,  I  am  down  to  raisins."  After  we 
had  heard  this  curious  remark  a  number  of  times, 
one  of  us  asked  him  what  it  meant.  He  thereupon 
told  the  story  of  the  little  girl  who  celebrated  her 
birthday  by  eating  very  freely  of  good  things,  top- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

ping  off  with  raisins  for  desert.  During  the  night 
she  was  taken  violently  ill,  and  when  the  Doctor 
arrived  she  was  busy  casting  up  her  accounts.  The 
genial  Doctor,  scrutinizing  the  contents  of  the 
vessel,  noticed  some  small  black  objects  that  had 
just  appeared  and  remarked  to  the  anxious  parents 
that  all  danger  was  now  passed,  as  the  child  was 
"down  to  raisins.''  "So/'  Lincoln  said,  "when  I 
reach  the  message  in  this  pile  which  I  saw  on  my 
last  previous  visit,  I  know  I  need  go  no  farther." 

McClellan  and  Lincoln 

McClellan  had  no  confidence  in  Lincoln's  mili- 
tary ability  or  discretion,  and  he  believed  informa- 
tion communicated  to  him  would  be  divulged  to 
Congressmen  and  others,  and  he  therefore  thought 
it  best  to  give  him  as  little  news  as  possible. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  the  early  part  of 
the  war,  before  Lincoln's  unique  personality  and 
masterly  qualities  became  known  to  the  members 
of  his  Cabinet,  heads  of  departments,  and  others, 
his  freedom  of  intercourse  with  the  public  and  the 
readiness  with  which  he  gave  out  military  infor- 
mation had  been  taken  advantage  of  by  newspaper 
correspondents. 

On  November  i,  1861,  the  President  issued  an 
order  placing  Lieutenant-General  Winfield  Scott 
upon  the  retired  list,  and  appointing  Major-Gen- 
eral  George  B.  McClellan  to  the  command  of  the 
army  of  the  United  States  in  his  place. 

On  October  21,  1 86 1 ,  a  message  from  General 
Stone,  near  Poolsville,  Maryland,  was  received  at 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Army  Headquarters  over  the  hastily  constructed 
telegraph  line,  stating  that  his  troops  had  moved 
across  the  Potomac  at  Edward's  Ferry,  and  after 
an  encounter  with  the  enemy  had  been  repulsed 
with  considerable  loss,  including  Colonel  E.  D. 
Baker,  who  was  killed.  McClellan  not  being  in  his 
office,  Eckert  started  out  to  find  him,  taking  from 
the  stable  an  ugly  tempered  mare,  dubbed  the 
"man-killer.''  He  rode  over  to  Fitz-John  Por- 
ter's headquarters  across  the  Potomac,  where  he 
learned  that  McClellan  had  returned  to  the  city. 
Eckert  came  back,  and  finding  that  McClellan 
had  gone  to  the  White  House,  dismounted,  walked 
across  Lafayette  Square,  and  in  Lincoln's  pres- 
ence, delivered  the  message  to  McClellan,  who 
did  not  tell  the  President  what  it  contained. 

Eckert  said  the  President  made  no  criticism  of 
his  action;  but  upon  more  careful  reflection  Eckert 
concluded  he  had  made  a  mistake,  because,  as 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  Lincoln  out- 
ranked both  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the  com- 
manding general. 

Charles  Carlton  Coffin,  a  newspaper  writer,  said 
of  the  death  of  Colonel  Baker: 

"I  doubt  if  any  other  of  the  many  tragic  events 
of  Lincoln's  life  ever  stunned  him  so  much  as  that 
unheralded  message,  which  came  over  the  wires 
on  that  mournful  day,  October  21,  1 8  6 1 ." 

Colonel  Baker  had  succeeded  Lincoln  in  Con- 
gress, and  between  the  two  there  was  always  a  close 
friendship  formed  during  the  years  in  which  they 
had  practised  law  in  Illinois.  Lincoln's  second  son, 

--4{  20  }E^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

who  died  in  1853,  ^^^  been  named  Edward  Baker 
Lincoln.  The  President,  no  doubt,  keenly  felt  the 
death  of  his  friend  as  a  great  personal  loss;  and 
besides,  it  must  have  helped  to  make  him  realize 
that  the  terrible  struggle  in  which  the  country  was 
engaged  would  demand  the  sacrifice  of  many  more 
of  such  useful  lives. 

It  is  trite  to  say  that  McClellan  began  his  mili- 
tary career  in  the  Civil  War  period  under  extraor- 
dinarily favorable  conditions,  and  that  Lincoln 
had  so  high  an  opinion  of  his  abilities  as  to  raise 
him,  a  man  only  thirty-five  years  of  age,  to  the  po- 
sition of  Commanding-General  of  the  United 
States  Army  to  succeed  General  Winfield  Scott, 
whose  first  laurels  were  gained  at  Lundy's  Lane  in 
1 8  1 2.  And  yet,  within  less  than  six  months  the  re- 
lations between  the  Administration  and  McClel- 
lan had  become  so  strained  that  the  President  was 
forced  to  write  him  an  impressive  letter: 

Washington,  April  9,  1862. 
Major-General  McClellan. 
My  dear  Sir: 

Your  dispatches,  complaining  that  you  are  not  prop- 
erly sustained,  while  they  do  not  offend  me,  do  pain  me 
very  much. 

I  beg  to  assure  you  that  I  have  never  written  you  or 
spoken  to  you  in  greater  kindness  of  feeling  than  now, 
nor  with  a  fuller  purpose  to  sustain  you,  so  far  as  in  my 
most  anxious  judgment  I  consistently  can;  but  you  must 
act. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

LincoMs  Judgment  of  the  Monitor 

Lincoln  was  very  much  interested  in  the  laying 
of  a  section  of  the  abandoned  Atlantic  cable  by  the 
Military  Telegraph  Corps  across  Chesapeake  Bay 
from  Cape  Charles  to  Fort  Monroe,  which  was 
completed  in  March,  1862,  just  in  time  to  have 
transmitted  over  it  General  Wool's  telegram  of 
March  9th  to  the  Secretary  of  War  stating  that 
Ericsson's  iron-clad  Monitor  had  arrived  and 
would  proceed  to  take  care  of  the  Merrimac. 

Mr.  Lincoln  later  was  much  pleased  to  receive 
General  Wool's  dispatch  announcing  the  victory 
of  the  Monitor,  which,  he  had  prophesied  to  Mr. 
Bushnell  some  time  before,  would  prove  to  be  an 
innovation  in  naval  warfare. 

Colonel  William  C.  Church's  Life  of  John 
Ericsson^  page  249,  referring  to  the  conference  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  with  the  Naval  Board  early  in  1 86 1 , 
quotes  this  letter  from  Mr.  Bushnell  (one  of  the 
contractors  who  built  the  Monitor)  addressed  to 
Gideon  Welles,  Lincoln's  Secretary  of  the  Navy: 

"All  were  surprised  at  the  novelty  of  the  plan, 
some  advised  trying  it,  others  ridiculed  it.  The 
conference  was  closed  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  remark- 
ing ^All  I  have  to  say  is  what  the  girl  said  when  she 
put  her  foot  in  the  stocking — it  strikes  me  there  is 
something  in  it.' " 

''Coif'  and  ''Horse'' 

From  January,  1 862,  until  the  close  of  the  war, 
the  telegraphic  reins  of  government  were  held  by 
the  firm  and  skilful  hand  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton, 

-4i  22  }»-»•- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Secretary  of  War,  and  their  guiding  influence  up- 
on the  affairs  of  the  nation  were  all-powerful  for 
good.  Dating,  also,  from  the  appointment  of  Stan- 
ton to  the  Cabinet,  Lincoln  made  the  War  Depart- 
ment Telegraph  Office  his  lounging-place,  and  we 
saw  him  daily,  although  our  office  at  that  time  was 
crowded  and  inconvenient. 

In  1862,  General  Schenck,  who  was  in  com- 
mand of  our  forces  near  Alexandria,  sent  a  tele- 
gram from  Drainsville,  Virginia,  announcing  a 
slight  skirmish  with  the  enemy,  resulting  in  the 
capture  of  thirty  or  forty  prisoners,  all  armed 
with  Colt's  revolvers.  As  Lincoln  read  the  mes- 
sage, he  turned  to  the  operator  who  handed  it  to 
him,  and  said,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  that  the 
newspapers  were  given  to  such  exaggeration  in 
publishing  army  news  that  we  might  be  sure  when 
General  Schenck's  dispatch  appeared  in  print  next 
day,  all  the  little  Colt's  revolvers  would  have 
grown  into  horse  pistols. 

As  illustrating  the  reputed  density  of  an  Eng- 
lishman's mind  in  the  matter  of  American  jokes, 
the  following  is  noted: 

In  March,  1905,  I  went  abroad  on  the  Cunard 
liner  "Caronia,"  and  on  Friday  evening  before  ar- 
riving at  Queenstown  made  an  address  on  Lincoln 
in  the  dining  room  in  which  I  told  the  story  of 
General  Schenck's  message  and  President  Lin- 
coln's remark. 

The  next  morning,  on  deck,  an  Englishman 
accosted  me  remarking,  "Ah,  Mr.  Bates,  I  was 
much  interested  in  your  address  last  evening,  par- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

ticularly  as  I  had  met  General  Schenck  when  he 
was  U.  S.  Consul  in  England.  I  am  curious  to 
know  if  the  newspapers  the  day  following  Gen- 
eral Schenck's  dispatch  did  actually  say  the  pris- 
oners were  equipped  with  horse  pistols."  I  an- 
swered that  as  the  time  was  so  far  back  I  could  not 

Short-legged  Joke 

On  one  occasion  an  official  letter  was  received 
from  John  Wintrup,  our  operator  at  Wilmington, 
Delaware,  on  the  route  of  the  military  line  from 
Washington  to  Fort  Monroe.  Wintrup's  signature 
was  written  in  a  rather  bold  hand  with  the  final 
letter  quite  large,  almost  like  a  capital,  and  ending 
in  flourishes  which  partly  obscured  the  name  it- 
self. Lincoln's  eye  dropped  on  this  letter  as  it  lay 
on  my  cipher-desk,  and  after  satisfying  his  curios- 
ity as  to  the  peculiar  signature  he  said,  "That  re- 
minds me  of  a  short-legged  man  in  a  big  overcoat, 
the  tail  of  which  was  so  long  it  wiped  out  his  foot- 
prints in  the  snow." 

''Chew  and  Choke^^ 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  was  sometimes  critical  and 
even  sarcastic  when  events  moved  slowly,  or  when 
obstacles  were  formidable,  he  never  failed  to  com- 
mend when  good  news  came,  as  shown  by  the 
following: 

August   17,    1864 10.30  A.M. 

Lieutenant-General  Grant, 
City  Point,  Va. 
I  have  seen  your  dispatch  expressing  your  unwilling- 
ness to  break  your  hold  where  you  are.  Neither  am  I 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


willing.  Hold  on  with  a  bulldog  grip  and  chew  and 
choke  as  much  as  possible. 

A.  Lincoln. 


Freedom  Drafted  at  Eckert^s  Desk 

Until  recently  it  has  not  been  known,  except  by 
a  few  persons,  that  Lincoln  wrote  the  first  draft  of 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  while  seated  at 
Eckert's  desk  in  the  cipher-room  of  the  War  De- 
partment Telegraph  Office.  Some  of  the  incidents 
connected  with  the  writing  of  that  immortal  doc- 
ument have  been  recorded  for  me  by  Eckert  as  fol- 
lows: 

"As  you  know,  the  President  came  to  the  office 
every  day  and  invariably  sat  at  my  desk  while 
there.  Upon  his  arrival  early  one  morning  in  June, 
1862,  shortly  after  McClellan's  ^Seven  Days' 
Fight,'  he  asked  me  for  some  paper,  as  he  wanted 
to  write  something  special.  I  procured  some  fools- 
cap and  handed  it  to  him.  He  then  sat  down  and 
began  to  write.  I  do  not  recall  whether  the  sheets 
were  loose  or  had  been  made  into  a  pad.  There 
must  have  been  at  least  a  quire.  He  would  look  out 
of  the  window  a  while  and  then  put  his  pen  to 
paper,  but  he  did  not  write  much  at  once.  He 
would  study  between  times  and  when  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  he  would  put  down  a  line  or  two,  and 
then  sit  quiet  for  a  few  minutes.  After  a  time  he 
would  resume  his  writing,  only  to  stop  again  at  in- 
tervals to  make  some  remark  to  me  or  to  one  of  the 
cipher-operators,  as  a  fresh  dispatch  from  the 
front  was  handed  to  him. 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

"Once  his  eye  was  arrested  by  the  sight  of  a 
large  spiderweb  stretched  from  the  lintel  of  the 
portico  to  the  side  of  the  outer  window-sill.  This 
spiderweb  was  an  institution  of  the  cipher-room 
and  harbored  a  large  colony  of  exceptionally  big 
ones.  We  frequently  watched  their  antics^  and  As- 
sistant Secretary  Watson  dubbed  then  'Major 
Eckert's  Lieutenants.'  Lincoln  commented  on  the 
web,  and  I  told  him  that  my  lientenants  would 
soon  report  and  pay  their  respects  to  the  President. 
Not  long  after  a  big  spider  appeared  at  the  cross- 
roads and  tapped  several  times  on  the  strands, 
whereupon  five  or  six  others  came  out  from  differ- 
ent directions.  Then  would  follow  what  appeared 
to  be  a  conf  erenoe  among  the  spiders,  all  of  which 
the  President  noted.  Scanning  what  he  already  had 
written,  the  President  would  remain  motionless 
for  a  minute  or  two  as  he  buckled  his  mind  to 
what  he  wanted  to  pen  next.  Another  glance  at  the 
spiders,  a  hitch  to  the  chair,  a  glance  out  of  the 
window,  and  then,  with  the  right  words  in  mind, 
he'd  write  a  few  lines,  pausing  to  read  over  the 
document  as  far  as  he'd  gone. 

"He  didn't  write  much  at  a  time,  and  he  didn't 
write  rapidly,  but  what  he  did  write  was  beauti- 
fully done,  with  few  or  no  interlineations  or  eras- 
ures. After  the  first  day  or  two  of  this  kind  of  work 
all  four  cipher  men  knew  what  he  was  doing,  as  he 
made  no  secret  about  it  to  Eckert,  who  was  guar- 
dian of  the  draft. 

"That's  the  way  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion grew  under  Lincoln's  hand  in  the  telegraph 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

office,  with  a  new  paragraph  every  now  and  then. 
As  I  said  in  the  beginning,  the  spiders  intermit- 
tently had  his  attention.  What  they  were  doing, 
especially  as  they  threw  out  filaments  and  found 
anchorages  for  them,  like  a  general  establishing 
new  lines  of  communications — all  such  marvelous 
little  things  challenged  Lincoln's  thought.  What 
the  spiders  were  doing  seemed  to  lubricate  the  big 
man's  mental  machinery,  much  as  a  jest  or  perti- 
nent anecdote  would  do  at  other  times." 

^-"-^  Lincoln^ s  War  Dispatches 

i 

''  During  the  entire  war,  the  files  of  the  War  De- 
partment Telegraph  Office  were  punctuated  with 
short,  pithy  dispatches  from  Lincoln.  For  in- 
stance, on  May  24,  1 862,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  ten  or 
twelve  telegrams  to  various  generals;  on  May 
25th  as  many  more,  and  from  one  to  a  dozen 
nearly  every  succeeding  day  for  months.  It  is  also 
worthy  of  remark  that  Lincoln's  numerous  tele- 
grams, even  those  sent  by  him  during  his  two 
weeks'  visit  to  City  Point  in  March  and  April, 
1865,  and  the  less  than  half  dozen  he  sent  after 
his  return  to  Washington,  were  almost  without  ex- 
ception in  his  own  handwriting,  his  copy  being 
remarkably  neat  and  legible,  with  seldom  an  era- 
sure or  correction.  ; 

Lincoln^ s  Love  of  Humor 

The  Civil  War  bred  a  fine  lot  of  humorists 
whose  writings  were  a  source  of  enjoyment  to  Mr. 
Lincoln.  He  was  particularly  fond  of  Artemus 

-4. 27.^^°- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


Ward  (Charles  F.  Browne),  Petroleum  V.  Nasby 
(David  R.  Locke),  K.  Philander  Doesticks,  Josh 
Allen,  and  Orpheus  C.  Kerr,  and  when  anything 
from  them  appeared,  he  was  likely  to  read  it  to  the 
operators.  He  also  liked  the  one  whose  letters  were 
dated  from  "Confedrite  Cross  Roads'^  and  an- 
other from  "Mackerelville."  The  latter  often  told 
of  skirmishes  between  the  Home  Guards  of  Mack- 
erelville  and  the  enemy,  ending  always  in  the  de- 
feat of  the  latter.  He  described  the  result  thus, 
"Victory  perched  upon  the  banners  of  the  con- 
queror.'' 

Lincoln  thought  this  remark  ridiculously 
funny.  "Why,"  he  said,"that's  where  victory  al- 
ways does  perch.'' 

Lincoln  also  read  to  us  operators  from  the  Cali- 
fornia humorist  Lieutenant  Derby,  who  told  of 
some  wonderful  hair  restorative,  a  bottle  of  which 
fell  and  broke  over  his  leather  trunk  on  which 
next  day  there  appeared  a  fine  growth  of  hair. 

Another  one  of  Lieutenant  Derby's  stories  told 
of  his  survey  of  a  three-mile  railroad  from  Sacra- 
mento which  lengthened  to  twenty  miles  because 
his  pedometer  had  kept  on  registering  the  distance 
while  he  danced  at  a  wayside  hotel  on  the  route  of 
the  proposed  road. 

Lincoln  wrote  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  at  Toledo  to 
make  him  a  visit,  which  he  did. 

I  have  a  card  in  Lincoln's  handwriting  reading 
"Josh  Allen,  Troops  going  to  smoke,"  but  I  cannot 
recall  the  incident  to  which  it  refers. 

There  was  popular,  many  years  ago,  a  pictorial 

-4  28  }>■' 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

book  of  nonsense  to  which  Lincoln  once  referred 
in  my  presence.  He  said  he  had  seen  such  a  book, 
and  recited  from  it  this  rhyme  as  illustrating  his 
idea  that  the  best  method  of  allaying  anger  was  to 
adopt  a  conciliatory  attitude.  The  picture  shown 
was  that  of  a  maiden  seated  on  a  stile  smiling  at  an 
angry  cow  near-by  in  the  field,  saying, 

I  will  sit  on  this  stile 
And  continue  to  smile, 

'Til  I  soften  the  heart  of  that  cow. 

Acorns  and  News 

One  day  Albert  Johnson  accompanied  the  Pres- 
ident from  the  Telegraph  Office  to  the  White 
House.  Passing  across  the  tree-shaded  lawn,  Albert 
stopped  and  began  pushing  the  leaves.  "What  are 
you  doing,  Albert?"  "Mr.  President,  I  am  trying 
to  find  some  acorns  for  my  boy  Harrison."  "Now 
Albert,"  the  President  said,  "you  surely  don't  ex- 
pect to  find  acorns  under  a  sycamore  tree,  do  you? 
Wait  until  you  come  to  an  oak  tree,  and  you  will 
find  plenty." 

One  morning  Lincoln,  accompanied  by  Seward, 
came  to  the  office  with  a  pleasant  "Good  Morning 
— what  news?"  Bender  Wilson  answered,  "Good 
news,  because  there  is  none."  Whereupon  Lincoln 
rejoined,  "Ah,  my  friend,  that  rule  does  not  al- 
ways hold  good,  for  a  fisherman  does  not  consider 
it  good  luck  when  he  can't  get  a  bite." 

On  one  occasion  Mr.  Lincoln  came  to  the  office 
and  asked  for  the  latest  news.  He  was  told  that 
General  McClellan  was  on  his  way  from  Arling- 

-4{_  29  }3^«- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

ton,  that  our  pickets  still  held  Balls  Cross  Roads, 
and  that  no  firing  had  been  heard  since  sunset.  He 
inquired  if  any  firing  had  been  heard  before  sun- 
set and  upon  being  answered  in  the  negative, 
laughingly  replied,  "That  reminds  me  of  the  man 
who,  speaking  of  a  supposed  freak  of  nature,  said, 
'The  child  was  black  from  his  hips  down,'  and 
upon  being  asked  the  color  from  the  hips  up,  re- 
plied, Vhy,  black,  of  course! ' " 

Big  Shuck — Little  Ear 

John  L.  Lane,  Evanston,  111.,  writes  to  the  New 
York  Times  Book  Review^  August  22,  1904,  crit- 
icising ChurchilPs  Crisis y  and  tells  this  story: 

"As  to  General  Grant's  story  of  Lincoln,  I 
would  say  it  is  true,  as  I  had  it  soon  after  Lincoln's 
remark  was  made  to  Grant,  by  one  who  was  present 
and  heard  it. 

"Grant  had  said  that  after  the  visit  of  the  Peace 
Commission  in  Hampton  Roads,  and  when  Grant 
was  present  after  the  Commission  left,  Alexander 
H.  Stephens  being  one  of  the  Commissioners,  Lin- 
coln asked  Grant  if  he  had  seen  the  overcoat  Ste- 
phens wore,  and  if  he  (Grant)  had  seen  Stephens 
take  it  off.  On  replying  that  he  had,  Lincoln  said,, 
'Well,  didn't  you  think  it  was  the  biggest  shuck 
and  the  littlest  ear  you  ever  did  see? '  Grant  fully 
understood,  as  would  anybody  that  knew  anything 
of  corn  growing  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  that 
Lincoln  was  likening  the  overcoat  to  the  great 
husks  our  Indian  corn  often  have  when  the  ear  in- 
side is  very  small.  As  Stephens  was  a  small  dried- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

up  old  man,  and  the  overcoat  a  very  large  one,  Lin- 
coln's remark  was  pertinent  and  humorous." 

Fast  Day 

In  connection  with  the  observance  of  the 
first  national  fast  day,  September  5,  1 86 1 ,  Colonel 
William  Bender  Wilson,  in  his  Acts  and  Actors  of 
the  Civil  Wary  page  1 1 1 ,  gives  an  account  of  the 
President's  visit  to  the  telegraph  office  that  morn- 
ing. As  he  entered  the  room  he  saw  George  Low, 
one  of  the  junior  operators,  at  work  cleaning  a  blue 
vitriol  battery.  "Well,  sonny,  mixing  the  juices, 
eh?"  the  President  inquired.  Then  sitting  down 
and  adjusting  his  spectacles,  which  were  specially 
made  with  short  spring  ends  to  clasp  the  sides  of 
his  head  just  back  of  his  eyes,  he  became  aware 
that  all  the  operators  were  busy,  and  a  smile  broke 
over  his  countenance  as  he  remarked,  "Gentle- 
men, this  is  fast  day,  and  I  am  pleased  to  observe 
that  you  are  working  as  fast  as  you  can;  the  proc- 
lamation was  mine,  and  that  is  my  interpretation  of 
its  bearing  upon  you.  Now  we  will  have  a  little 
talk  with  Governor  Morton  at  Indianapolis.  I  want 
to  give  him  a  lesson  in  geography.  The  Bowling 
Green  affair  I  set  him  all  right  upon;  now  I  will 
tell  him  something  about  Muldraugh  Hill.  Mor- 
ton is  a  good  fellow,  but  at  times  he  is  the  skeered- 
est  man  I  know  of."  This  talk  with  Governor  Mor- 
ton was  in  consequence  of  the  latter's  telegram  ex- 
pressing great  anxiety  concerning  the  Confederate 
General  Zollicoffer's  reported  movement  toward 
Louisville.  Lincoln  told  Morton  over  the  wire  that 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

he  hoped  the  report  was  true,  as  in  such  event  our 
troops  would  be  able  to  advance  and  occupy  Cum- 
berland Gapj  which  Lincoln  claimed  was  a  very- 
important  strategical  position. 

L'm coin's  Lo72g  Hours 

There  were  many  times  when  Lincoln  remained 
in  the  telegraph  office  till  late  at  night,  and  occa- 
sionally all  night  long.  One  of  these  occasions  was 
during  Pope's  short  disastrous  campaign  of  1862, 
ending  in  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run.  Lincoln 
came  to  the  War  Department  Office  several  times 
on  August  26th,  the  first  of  those  strenuous,  anx- 
ious days,  and  after  supper  he  came  again,  pre- 
pared to  stay  all  night,  in  order  to  receive  the  latest 
news  from  Pope,  who  was  at  the  front,  and  from 
McClellan,  who  was  still  at  Alexandria. 

Hour  after  hour  of  the  long  night  passed  with 
no  news  from  the  front  until  just  before  dawn, 
when  the  following  was  received: 

A.  Lincoln,  President.  ^^g^^t  27,  1 862— 4.25  a.m. 
Intelligence  received  within  twenty  minutes  informs 
me  that  the  enemy  are  advancing  and  have  crossed  Bull 
Run  bridge  3  if  it  is  not  destroyed,  it  probably  will  be. 
The  forces  sent  by  us  last  night  held  it  until  that  time. 

H.  Haupt. 

Lincoln,  who  was  keeping  vigil  with  the  tele- 
graph operators,  at  once  penned  this  answer: 

August  27,   1862 7.15  A.M. 

Colonel  Haupt. 

What  became  of  our  forces  which  held  the  bridge  till 
twenty  minutes  ago,  as  you  say?  A.  Lincoln. 

-=^{  32  }^'- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Receiving  no  reply  immediately,  Lincoln  tele- 
graphed again: 

War  Department,  August  27,  1862. 
Colonel  Haupt. 

Is  the  railroad  bridge  over  Bull  Run  destroyed? 

A.  Lincoln. 

To  this  Colonel  Haupt  replied: 

August  28,  1862. 
President  Lincoln. 

Colonel  Scammon  held  Bull  Run  Bridge  a  long  time 
against  a  very  superior  force,  retired  at  last  in  perfect 
order.  H.  Haupt. 

Lincoln  and  Haupt 

During  the  next  few  days,  Lincoln  sent  other 
brief  messages  of  inquiry  to  Colonel  Haupt,  upon 
whom  he,  as  well  as  Secretary  Stanton  and  General 
Halleck,  seemed  to  depend  for  early  information 
far  more  than  upon  Pope  or  McClellan,  as  shown 
by  the  following  additional  telegrams  (taken  from 
Haupt's  Reminiscences  p.  107,  et  seq.) 

War  Department,  Aug.  28,  1862 — 2.40  p.m. 
Colonel  Haupt. 

Yours  received.  How  do  you  learn  that  the  rebel 
forces  at  Manassas  are  large  and  commanded  by  several 
of  their  best  generals? 

A.  Lincoln. 

August  28,  1862. 
President  Lincoln. 

One  of  Colonel  Scammon's  surgeons  was  captured  and 
released;  he  communicated  the  information.  One  of  our 

-<  33  >- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

firemen  was  captured  and  escaped^  he  confirms  it  and 
gives  important  details.  General  McClellan  has  just  seen 
him.  .  .  . 

H.  Haupt. 

August  29,  1862. 
Colonel  Haupt. 

What  news  from  direction  of  Manassas  Junction? 
What  generally? 

A.  Lincoln. 

August  29,  1862. 
President  Lincoln  and  General  Halleck. 

General  Pope  was  at  Centreville  this  morning  at  six 
o'clock.  Seemed  to  be  in  good  spirits.  .  .  . 

H.  Haupt. 

August  30,  I  862 9.00  A.M. 

Colonel. 

What  news?  A.  Lincoln. 

August  30,   1862 8.50  P.M. 

Colonel  Haupt. 

Please  send  me  the  latest  news. 

A.  Lincoln. 

August  30,  1862. 
A.  Lincoln,  President. 

Our  operator  has  reached  Manassas.  Hears  no  firing 
of  importance.  .  .  .  We  have  reestablished  telegraphic 
communication  with  Manassas.  .  .  . 

.  ,  .  Our  telegraph  operators  and  railway  employees 
are  entitled  to  great  credit.  They  have  been  advanced 
pioneers,  occupying  the  posts  of  danger  j  and  the  ex- 
ploit of  penetrating  to  Fairfax  and  bringing  off  the 
wounded  when  they  supposed  that  20,000  i:ebels  were 
on  their  front  and  flanks,  was  one  of  the  boldest  per- 
formances I  have  ever  heard  of. 

H.  Haupt. 

-^4{  34  >- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

August  31,  1862 7. 1 0  A.M. 

Colonel  Haupt. 

What  news?  Did  you  hear  any  firing  this  morning? 

A.  Lincoln. 

August  31,  1862. 
President  Lincoln. 

No  news  received  as  yet  this  morning.  Firing  heard 
distinctly  in  direction  of  Brisco  at  six  o'clock. 

H.  Haupt. 

And  so  the  anxious  hours  passed,  with  Lincoln 
in  the  Telegraph  Office  on  the  watch  until  it  was 
known  that  for  the  second  time  our  army  had  met 
defeat  on  the  fatal  field  of  Bull  Run. 

President's  Quick  Grasp  of  War  Technique 

General  Haupt,  in  his  Reminiscences ^  makes 
this  reference  to  Lincoln's  anxiety,  "During  this 
protracted  engagement,  August  24  and  September 
2,  1862,  the  President  was  in  a  state  of  extreme 
anxiety  and  could  have  slept  but  little.  Inquiries 
came  from  him  at  all  hours  of  the  night  asking  for 
the  latest  news  from  the  front.''  The  cipher-oper- 
ators could  confirm  this  statement  even  if  Lin- 
coln's messages  here  quoted  did  not  establish  the 
fact.  They  also  clearly  show  that  for  a  man  who 
never  had  a  day's  military  experience  (if,  strictly 
speaking,  we  may  except  the  farcical  episode  in 
his  career  in  the  Black  Hawk  Indian  Campaign  in 
1832),  Lincoln,  who  by  virtue  of  the  presidential 
office  was  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and 
Navy  of  the  United  States,  possessed  an  almost  in-- 

-4. 3S  >- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

tuitive  perception  of  the  practical  requirements 
of  that  responsible  ofBce,  and  that  in  his  usual  com- 
mon-sense way  of  doing  things,  he  was  perform- 
ing the  duties  of  that  position  in  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  effective  manner. 

Lincoln  and  Busy  bodies 

During  Burnside's  unsuccessful  campaign  be- 
fore Fredericksburg  late  in  1 862,  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  newspaper  talk  about  certain  of  his  gen- 
erals, formerly  under  McClellan,  being  out  of 
sympathy  with  and  jealous  of  Burnsidcj  and  the 
court-martial  of  Fitz-John  Porter  then  in  prog- 
ress had  as  a  basis  for  its  charges  the  contention 
that  Porter  failed  to  support  Pope  promptly  in 
August,  1862,  because  of  his  partizan  friendship 
for  McClellan.  The  President  showed  no  surprise 
when  he  received  the  following  telegram  from 
his  unknown  advisor: 

His  Excellency,  A.  Lincoln,  President. 

Richmond  campaign,  Franklin  remaining,  foregone 
conclusion.  Robert  A.  Maxwell. 

No  reply  was  made  to  this  foolish  dispatch,  nor 
to  several  others  which  were  afterward  received 
from  Maxwell.  But  at  the  time  of  the  New  York 
draft  riots,  these  dispatches  were  exchanged: 

Philadelphia,  July  15,  1863. 
A.  Lincoln,  President. 

Albert  Gallatin  Thorp,  informed  that  Seymour  is  well 
controlled  beyond  safe  limits.  Why  hesitate. 

Robert  A.  Maxwell. 

-4. 36  }^^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Washington,  D.  C,  July  15,  1863. 
Robert  A.  Maxwell,  Philadelphia. 

Your  dispatch  of  to-day  received,  but  I  do  not  under- 
stand it.  A.  Lincoln. 

Maxwell's  dispatch  no  doubt  had  reference  to 
Governor  Seymour  of  New  York,  who  at  that  time, 
during  the  progress  of  the  draft  riots,  which  cul- 
minated on  that  day,  July  15,  1863,  was  supposed, 
at  least  by  the  War  Department  officials,  to  be  in 
sympathy  with  the  Confederate  Government,  and 
particularly  with  the  efforts  of  their  Northern 
agents,  Jacob  Thompson  and  others  in  Canada,  to 
incite  opposition  in  the  North  to  the  Administra- 
tion, and  to  hinder  the  draft  then  being  enforced 
under  Lincoln's  proclamation  of  June  15,  1863, 
for  one  hundred  thousand  men,  for  six  months' 
service. 

Lincoln  Defends  Thomas 

The  next  Maxwell  telegram  of  record  was  as 
follows: 

New  York  City,  1.30  p.m.,  Sept.  23,  1863. 
His  Excellenty,  A.  Lincoln,  President. 

Will  BuelPs  testamentary  executor  George  Thomas 
ever  let  Rosecrans  succeed?  Is  Bragg  dumb  enough  to 
punish  Thomas  severely  and  disgracingly? 

Robert  A.  Maxwell. 

The  President  held  this  impertinent  telegram 
until  his  evening  visit  to  the  War  Department. 
Meantime,  no  doubt  thinking  that  some  defense 
of  General  Thomas  by  the  Administration  might 

-»<{  37  >- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

serve  to  allay  the  already  evidently  widespread 
distrust  and  anxiety,  he  wrote  the  following  dis- 
patch at  the  White  House  and  brought  it  to  the 
telegraph  office  and  handed  it  to  Mr.  Tinker  for 
transmission: 

[cipher] 

executive  mansion, 

Washington,  Sept.  23,  1863. 
Robert  A.  Maxwell,  New  York. 

I  hasten  to  say  that  in  the  state  of  information  we  have 
here  nothing  could  be  more  ungracious  than  to  indulge 
any  suspicion  towards  General  Thomas.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  his  heroism  and  skill  exhibited  last  Sunday 
afternoon  has  ever  been  surpassed  in  the  world. 

A.  Lincoln. 

But  the  message  had  been  in  Tinker's  hands  only 
a  few  minutes,  when  Lincoln  came  over  to  the 
cipher-desk  and  said,  "I  guess  I  will  not  send  this  5 
I  can't  afford  to  answer  every  crazy  question  asked 
me." 

Sheridan  Tall  Enough  ''on  a  Pinch^^ 

In  March,  1865,  Sheridan,  with  his  chief  of 
staff.  Captain  Forsyth,  rode  over  from  White 
House  to  City  Point.  Robert  Lincoln  informed  his 
father,  who  was  on  the  River  Queen,  that  "Little 
Phil"  had  arrived.  The  President  hastened  ashore 
and  went  to  Colonel  Bower's  tent  to  express  his 
personal  congratulations  to  Sheridan,  which  he  did 
in  the  most  sincere  and  graceful  manner,  winding 
up  with  this  remark,  "General  Sheridan,  when 
this  peculiar  war  began  I  thought  a  cavalryman 

-=^{38}^=- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

should  be  at  least  six  feet  four  high;  but,"  still 
holding  Sheridan's  hand  in  his  earnest  grasp  and 
looking  down  upon  the  little  general,  "I  have 
changed  my  mind — five  feet  four  will  do  on  a 
pinch."  Sheridan  measured  five  feet  four  and  a 
half,  and  at  this  time  weighed  only  one  hundred 
and  forty-one  pounds;  but  in  the  saddle  "he 
weighed  a  ton,"  as  his  soldiers  were  wont  to  say. 
At  the  meeting  with  Lincoln  he  appeared  without 
sword,  sash,  belt,  or  epaulets,  and  with  his  old 
brown  slouch-hat  in  his  hand. 

''Hunkered  Out  a  Chair^^ 

William  B.  Wilson,  the  first  manager  of  our 
office,  tells  this  story: 

"We  always  set  apart  a  large  chair  for  the  Pres- 
ident. One  day  he  came  in  alone  and  walked  over 
to  the  instrument  table  and  began  to  write.  Almost 
immediately  there  was  a  call  at  that  table  and 
Operator  Flesher,  in  answering  it,  leaned  over  Mr. 
Lincoln's  shoulder,  who  turned  and  said,  "Have  I 
hunkered  you  out  of  your  chair? " 

The  generally  accepted  measurement  of  Lin- 
coln's height  is  six  feet  four  inches,  when  stand- 
ing erect.  He  stooped  slightly  when  walking.  He 
usually  wore  a  high  silk  hat,  which  made  him  look 
taller  than  he  really  was.  He  told  us  operators  one 
day  a  man  had  asked  him  how  tall  he  was.  He  told 
him.  The  man  then  asked  how  long  a  man's  legs  of 
his  height  should  be.  Lincoln  said,  "Just  long 
enough  to  reach  the  ground." 


NCOLN  STORIES 


Grandfather  ^'Waived^^ 

During  the  Civil  War,  when  Secretary  Salmon 
P.  Chase  endeavored  to  raise  a  large  sum  of  money 
to  carry  on  the  war,  some  financial  magnates  came 
to  Washington  from  New  York  and  were  brought 
to  the  Telegraph  Office  where  Mr.  Lincoln  hap- 
pened to  be.  Their  spokesman  began  to  apologize 
for  seeming  to  intrude,  remarking  that  he  did  not 
like  to  find  fault  with  the  President.  Mr.  Lincoln 
said,  "Never  mind,  go  ahead  with  your  story.  You 
remind  me  of  the  grandson  who  threatened  to 
whip  his  grandfather,  but  refrained  from  doing 
so  because  he  was  his  grandfather.  The  old  man 
said,  ^Come  on,  I  waive  the  grandfather.'  Gentle- 
men, go  on  with  your  plauj  I  waive  the  Presi- 
dency." 

Family  Telegrams 

Here  are  two  telegrams  out  of  a  large  number 
in  which  Lincoln  referred  to  his  children  in  an 
affectionate  manner. 

August  31,  1864. 
Mrs.  a.  Lincoln^  Manchester,  Vt. 

All  reasonably  well.  Bob  not  here  yet.  How  is  dear 
Tad?  A.  Lincoln. 


September  8,  1864. 
Mrs.  a.  Lincoln^  Manchester,  Vt. 

All  well  including  Tad's  pony  and  the  goats. 

A.  Lincoln. 

On  another  occasion  Lincoln  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Lincoln  as  follows: 

-^  40  ^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


".  .  .  Tell  dear  Tad  poor  Nanny  goat  is  lost.  .  .  . 
The  day  you  left,  Nanny  was  found  resting  herself  and 
chewing  her  little  cud  on  the  middle  of  Tad's  bed,  but 
now  she's  gone.   .  .  . 

Lincoln  and  Little  Tad 

The  President's  affection  for  his  youngest  boy. 
Tad,  was  such  that  they  were  together  much  of  the 
time,  even  while  the  father  was  receiving  callers 
or  attending  to  ofRcial  business  in  the  White  House, 
and  nearly  always  when  visiting  the  army  at  the 
front  or  in  the  defenses  around  Washington.  They 
came  to  the  War  Department  together  very  often. 

Many  stories  are  told  of  Tad's  mischievous 
pranks,  and  of  his  father's  close  companionship 
with  his  favorite  boy.  Mr.  Tinker  records  that  on 
one  occasion  Lincoln  came  into  the  telegraph  of- 
fice chuckling  to  himself  over  a  fairy  story-book 
that  some  one  had  given  to  Tad,  who  was  holding 
his  father's  hand  as  he  entered  the  room.  He  there- 
upon repeated  the  story  to  the  cipher-operators.  It 
told  how  a  mother  hen  tried  to  raise  a  brood  of 
chicks,  but  was  much  disturbed  over  the  conduct 
of  a  sly  old  fox  who  ate  several  of  the  youngsters 
while  still  professing  to  be  an  honest  fox;  so  the 
anxious  mother  had  a  serious  talk  with  the  old 
reynard  about  his  wickedness.  "Well,  what  was  the 
result?"  one  of  us  asked,  when  it  appeared  that 
Lincoln  did  not  intend  to  continue  his  narrative. 
"The  fox  reformed,"  said  Lincoln,  his  eyes  twink- 
ling, "and  became  a  highly  respected  paymaster  in 
the  army,  and  now  I  am  wondering  which  one  he 
is."  The  significance  of  this  reference  is  in  the  fact 

-<{  41   }£<-- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

that  about  that  time  there  were  rumors  of  fraud  in 
the  Paymaster's  Department. 

Ta(Ps  ''Black  Hand?^  Prank 

My  comrade,  Madison  Buell,  has  given  an  ac- 
count of  a  visit  of  Lincoln  to  the  War  Department 
accompanied,  as  usual,  by  Tad,  who  wandered 
through  the  cipher-ofBce  into  the  adjoining  room, 
where  the  telegraph  instruments  were  located  on 
a  marble-topped  table.  In  pure  mischief  Tad  thrust 
his  fingers  into  an  ink-well  and  wiped  them  across 
several  of  the  white  tops,  making  a  horrible  mess. 
Buell  seized  the  boy  by  the  collar  and  marched  him 
at  arm's  length  into  the  cipher-room,  where  his 
father  was  seated  looking  over  the  latest  dispatches 
which  he  had  taken  from  the  little  drawer  of  the 
cipher-desk.  Each  one  of  the  trio  was  surprised 
and  a  little  embarrassed,  Buell  perhaps  more  so 
than  the  other  two.  Tad  held  up  his  inky  fingers, 
while  Buell,  with  a  look  of  disgust  on  his  face, 
pointed  through  the  open  door  to  the  row  of  marble 
tops  smeared  with  ink.  Lincoln  took  in  the  situa- 
tion at  once,  and  without  asking  for  further  expla- 
nation, lifted  his  boy  in  his  arms  and  left  the  office, 
saying  in  a  pleasant  tone,  "Come,  Tad;  Buell  is 
abusing  you." 

Tale  of  Two  Hens 

After  the  good  news  from  Gettysburg,  Lincoln 
appeared  in  the  Telegraph  Office  and  told  Albert 
Chandler,  cipher-operator,  these  two  stories:  One 
was  called  a  hen  walker  and  consisted  of  a  stick 
attached  to  one  leg  of  the  hen  who,  in  walking 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

around,  would  be  propelled  forward  until  she  was 
out  of  the  garden. 

The  other  was  called  an  egg  persuader,  consist- 
ing of  a  hinged  bottom  in  the  nest  so  that  when  the 
hen  laid  an  egg  it  would  drop  through  out  of  her 
sight,  whereupon  the  hen  would  try  to  lay  another 

egg. 

Story  of  a  Misfit  Hat 

Once,  after  one  of  us  had  related  Thomas  Hood's 
story  of  the  spoiled  child,  when  the  fat  aunt  sat 
down  on  the  baby  which  the  nurse  had  left  on  the 
arm  chair,  Lincoln  was  reminded  of  this  incident: 

Scene:  A  Theatre. 

"When  the  play  had  already  been  started,  a 
gentleman  had  placed  his  hat  in  the  seat  next  to 
him  and  was  deeply  interested  in  the  play,  not  no- 
ticing a  stout  lady  coming  in  and  sitting  down  on 
the  hat.  'Madam,'  he  says,  'I  knew  that  hat  would 
not  fit  you  when  I  saw  you  try  it  on.' " 

Getting  a  Baby  to  Its  Father 

Lincoln  had  a  sympathetic  heart  for  any  one  in 
trouble,  as  shown  in  this  incident: 

One  day  he  entered  the  office  from  the  hallway 
and  said  there  was  a  woman  outside  who  was  cry- 
ing, and  he  wished  we  would  find  out  what  her 
trouble  was.  On  inquiry  we  learned  that  she  was 
trying  to  get  a  pass  to  go  to  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac to  take  her  baby  to  its  father,  who  had  never 
seen  it.  She  was  crying  because  the  Secretary  of 
War  had  said  she  could  not  go  to  the  Army  to  see 
her  husband. 

-=^{  43  >~ 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Lincoln  sent  for  Stanton's  Secretary  and  asked 
him  to  send  a  furlough  to  the  man  and  have  him 
come  to  Washington  to  see  his  wife  and  child. 
Lincoln  then  went  out  and  told  the  sorrowing 
woman  he  had  arranged  to  have  her  husband  come 
to  Washington  to  see  her  and  his  child.  She  was 
overjoyed  at  the  good  news. 

^  ''Small  Potatoes^^ 

I  Comrade  Atwater  was  stationed  at  the  Wash- 
ington Navy  Yard  much  of  the  time  during  the 
war,  and  has  given  the  following  account  of  a  visit 
which  Lincoln  made  on  one  occasion  when  experi- 
ments were  being  made  with  rocket  signals: 

"One  evening  a  party  of  six  or  eight,  including 
Mr.  Lincoln,  came  to  the  Navy  Yard  and  pro- 
ceeded to  the  bulkhead,  where  they  had  arranged 
to  demonstrate  the  workings  of  certain  signalling 
rockets,  several  of  which  were  sent  up  with  good 
results.  When  the  last  one  was  tried,  each  one  in 
the  party  watched  it  as  it  soared  aloft,  leaving  its 
streams  of  fire  trailing  behind,  but  when  half-way 
up  it  exploded  prematurely  and  fell  to  the  water. 

"  Well,'  remarked  Lincoln,  ^small  potatoes  and 
few  in  a  hill.'  I  had  never  heard  the  expression 
before,  and  it  fastened  itself  in  my  mind,"  said 
Atwater.  | 

Appraising  the  Drama 

I  am  led  to  mention  Lincoln's  love  of  Shake- 
speare because  in  the  winter  of  1 8 65,  a  few  months 
before  his  death,  he  went  a  number  of  times  to  see 

-4. 44  }^°- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


James  H.  Hackett  play  Falstaff,  and  for  a  week  or 
more  he  carried  in  his  pocket  a  well-worn  copy  in 
small  compass  of  Macbeth^  and  one  of  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor^  selections  from  both  of  which 
he  read  aloud  to  us  in  the  telegraph  office.  On  one 
occasion  I  was  his  only  auditor,  and  he  recited  sev- 
eral passages  to  me  with  as  much  interest  appar- 
ently as  if  there  had  been  a  full  house.  He  was 
very  fond  of  Hackett  personally,  and  of  the  char- 
acter Falstaff ,  and  frequently  repeated  some  of  the 
latter's  quaint  sallies.  I  recall  that  in  his  recitation 
for  my  benefit  he  criticised  some  of  Hackett's 
readings.  He  wrote  a  letter  to  that  gentleman  on 
August  17,  1863,  in  which  he  said: 

For  one  of  my  age  I  have  seen  very  little  of  the  drama. 
The  first  presentation  of  Falstaff  I  ever  saw  was  yours, 
here  last  winter  or  spring.  Perhaps  the  best  compliment 
I  can  pay  is  to  say,  as  I  truly  can,  I  am  very  anxious  to 
see  it  again.  I  think  nothing  equals  Macbeth,  It  is  won- 
derful. .  .  . 

A.  K.  McClure,  in  his  Life  of  Lincoln^  speaks 
of  the  latter's  love  of  Shakespeare  and  mentions  an 
interview  between  Lincoln,  Judge  Kelley,  and  an 
actor  named  McDonough,  during  which  Lincoln 
took  from  a  shelf  a  well-thumbed  copy  of  Shake- 
speare and,  turning  to  Henry  IV y  read  with  dis- 
crimination an  extended  passage,  which  he  said 
was  not  surpassed  in  wit  and  humor  by  anything 
else  in  literature.  The  omission  from  the  acted 
play  of  the  passage  in  question  was  remarked  upon 
by  Lincoln  as  curious. 

McClure  adds  that  all  these  incidents  show  an 

-<{  45  >- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

intimate  acquaintance  with  the  text  of  Shake- 
speare's writings  and  not  only  so,  but  a  keen  and 
discriminating  appreciation  of  their  depth  and 

Lincoln  and  Murdoch 

James  E.  Murdoch,  of  Cincinnati,  an  actor  of 
repute  before  the  war,  upon  learning  that  his  son 
had  enlisted  and  was  in  camp  at  Lancaster,  Penn- 
sylvania, went  there  to  say  good-bye  to  his  boy.  He 
whiled  away  some  of  his  otherwise  idle  time  in 
camp  in  making  patriotic  speeches  and  giving  reci- 
tations, to  the  great  delight  of  the  officers  and  men 
of  the  regiment.  Afterward  he  visited  other  regi- 
ments and  companies  at  enlistment  points  and  also 
at  the  front,  devoting  a  large  part  of  his  time  for 
several  years  to  the  task  of  contributing  to  the 
comfort  of  the  soldiers  in  the  army  through  the 
medium  of  the  United  States  Sanitary  Commis- 
sion. Murdoch's  favorite  recitations  were  the  stir- 
ring poems  of  George  H.  Boker,  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  Francis  de  Haes  Janvier,  and  T.  Buchanan 
Read.  In  1 8  6  3 ,  a  relative  or  friend  of  Murdoch  was 
courtmartialed  for  sleeping  on  post,  or  for  some 
other  serious  violation  of  military  duty,  and  Mur- 
doch's sister-in-law,  Adelaide,  visited  Washington 
to  intercede  for  the  boy's  life.  A  Mrs.  Guthrie,  of 
Wheeling,  having  known  Major  Eckert  when 
both  were  children,  asked  him  to  secure  an  inter- 
view with  the  President  for  Mrs.  Murdoch.  This 
was  done,  and  the  appeal  was  so  effective  that  the 
President  pardoned  the  soldier.  Whether  this  man 
was  named  William  Scott  (from  Vermont),  whose 

-»<  46  }>=•- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

pardon  by  Lincoln  inspired  Janvier  to  write  his 
beautiful  poem  entitled  "The  Sleeping  Sentinel," 
is  not  recorded.  Murdoch,  in  his  volume  Patriot- 
ism in  Poetry  and  Prose^  says  of  this  poem: 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  reading  this  beautiful  and  touch- 
ing poem  for  the  first  time  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  and 
a  select  party  of  their  friends  at  the  White  House,  by 
invitation  of  Senator  Foote  of  Vermont.  ...  Its  sec- 
ond reading  was  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  the  proceeds 
being  for  the  aid  of  our  sick  and  wounded  soldiers. 

Soon  after  the  relative  (or  friend)  of  Murdoch 
had  been  pardoned,  the  latter  visited  Washington 
and  went  with  Eckert  to  the  White  House  to  thank 
the  President  in  person  for  his  merciful  act.  During 
the  interview  Lincoln  told  Murdoch  how  much  he 
appreciated  his  splendid  work  for  the  Union  cause, 
and  added  that  if  agreeable  he  would  like  him  to 
recite  something  from  Shakespeare.  Murdoch  said 
he  would  prefer  to  do  that  on  another  occasion  so 
that  he  might  select  something  suitable  and  pre- 
pare himself,  but  that  if  the  President  would  al- 
low him  he  would  then  recite  a  poem  entitled 
"Mustered  Out,''  by  W.  E.  Miller.  The  words 
are  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  dying  soldier,  who  in 
one  of  the  verses  says: 

I  am  no  saint  j 
But,  boys,  say  a  prayer.  There's  one  that  begins 
"Our  Father,"  and  then  says  "Forgive  us  our  sins." 
Don't  forget  that  part,  say  that  strongly  and  then 
I'll  try  to  repeat  it,  and  you'll  say  "Amen." 

When  the  poem  was  finished,  Murdoch  asked  per- 
mission to  continue  the  theme  by  giving  in  full  the 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  President,  who  was  visibly 
effected  by  Murdoch's  fine  rendering  of  the  beau- 
tiful poem,  nodded  his  assent.  Murdoch  then  be- 
gan, "Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven,"  and  in  a 
most  reverent  and  devout  manner  repeated  the 
whole  prayer,  Mr.  Lincoln  audibly  joining  in  the 
closing  petitions.  When  he  had  concluded,  all  three 
of  the  group  were  in  tears.  Eckert  says  that  on  the 
following  day,  Murdoch,  accompanied  by  the  late 
Mr.  Philip  (of  Philip  and  Solomons)  visited  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  gave  some  readings  from  Shakespeare. 
On  a  later  occasion  (February  15,  1864),  Mr. 
Nicolay,  private  secretary,  wrote  Murdoch  thus: 

My  DEAR  Sir: 

The  President  directs  me  to  send  you  the  enclosed 
little  poem  and  to  request  that  if  entirely  convenient, 
you  will  please  to  read  it  at  the  Senate  Chamber  this 
evening. 

The  printed  enclosure  reads  thus: 

"The  following  lines  are  written  by  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  statesmen  of  the  United  States 
in  answer  to  a  lady's  inquiry  whether  he  was  for 
peace." 

Note  by  Author:  There  were  in  all  eight 
stanzas,  the  first  of  which  only  is  here  quoted,  as 
follows: 

Am  I  for  Peace?  Yes! 
For  the  peace  which  rings  out  from  the  cannon't  throat, 

And  the  suasion  of  shot  and  shell, 
Till  rebellion's  spirit  is  trampled  down, 

To  the  depths  of  its  kindred  hell. 


NCOLN  STORIES 


Morse  Signal  Interests  Lincoln 

In  the  summer  months,  Lincoln,  with  his  fam- 
ily, lived  in  one  of  the  cottages  at  the  Soldiers' 
Home,  and  so  it  was  arranged  that  there  should  be 
an  exhibition  (for  his  special  benefit)  of  Morse 
signaling  to  and  from  the  Smithsonian,  and  on  the 
evening  of  August  24,  1 864,  Major  Eckert  and  I 
went  to  the  Soldiers'  Home  with  suitable  instru- 
ments, our  comrades.  Chandler  and  Dwight,  hav- 
ing gone  to  the  Smithsonian  Institution  with  a  sim- 
ilar equipment.  My  diary  records  that  there  were 
present  on  the  tower  of  the  Soldiers'  Home,  be- 
sides the  operators,  the  President,  Rear-Admiral 
Davis  of  the  Navy  Department,  Colonel  Nicode- 
mus  of  the  Signal  Corps,  and  Colonel  Dimmick  of 
the  Army.  We  were  able  to  send  Morse  signals  to 
the  roof  of  the  Smithsonian  and  receive  responses 
from  Chandler  and  Dwight.  Professor  Joseph 
Henry  was  present  and  witnessed  our  experiments. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  greatly  interested  in  this  exhibi- 
tion and  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  signal  sys- 
tem of  both  the  army  and  navy  could  and  would  be 
improved  so  as  to  become  of  immense  value  to  the 
Government.  This  has,  in  fact,  been  done,  and  our 
efforts  of  over  sixty  years  ago  now  appear  rudi- 
mentary. 

Lincoln  Disavows  Famous  Story 

It  has  been  said  that  all  standard  jokes  may  be 
traced  to  antiquity.  Even  Christ's  saying  to  the 
Pharisees,  "Ye  strain  at  a  gnat  and  swallow  a 
camel,"  may  be  the  prototype  of  the  current  phrase 

-•€{  49  ¥- 


LINCOLN  STORIFS 

"Handsome  is  that  handsome  does,"  or  to  Christ's 
other  saying,  "For  ye  make  clean  the  outside  of  the 
cup  and  of  the  platter  but  inside  ye  are  full  of  ex- 
tortion and  excess. '^ 

Lincoln  must  have  had  this  parallelism  of  jokes 
at  the  back  of  his  mind  when  in  the  telegraph  office 
reference  was  made  to  Grant's  drinking  habits  and 
to  Lincoln's  reputed  remark  that  he  wished  Grant 
would  tell  him  the  brand  of  whiskey  he  drank  so 
that  he  might  order  some  for  his  other  generals. 
Lincoln  denied  this,  adding  that  he  presumed  the 
originator  of  the  story  must  have  had  in  his  mind 
the  historic  remark  of  King  George,  who,  when 
told  that  General  Wolfe  in  Canada  was  mad,  said 
he  wished  Wolfe  would  bite  some  of  his  other 
generals. 

Sir  Charles  Burnand,  long  editor  oi  Punchy  once 
said  that  some  of  Punches  jokes  after  travelling 
around  the  world  would  come  back  dressed  in  new 
garb,  not  expecting  to  be  recognized  by  Punch  as 
the  children  of  his  brain. 

Foiling  a  Wire  Tapper 

On  November  25,  1862,  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  the 
following  telegram  to  General  Burnside  at  Fal- 
mouth, Virginia: 

If  I  should  be  in  boat  off  Aquia  Creek  at  dark  to- 
morrow (Wednesday)  evening,  could  you,  without  in- 
convenience, meet  me  and  pass  an  hour  or  two  with  me? 

This  message  was  put  into  a  home-made  cipher 
because  we  had  detected  a  Confederate  operator 
on  our  wire  about  that  time.  The  following  is  the 
cipher  form: 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Washington,  D.  C,  November  25,  1862. 
BuRNSiDE,  Falmouth,  Virginia: 

Can  Inn  Ale  me  withe  2  oar  our  Ann  pas  Ann  me 
flesh  ends  N.  V.  Corn  Inn  out  with  U  cut  Inn  heaven 
day  nest  Wed.  roe  Moore  Tom  darkey  hat  Greek  Why 
Hawk  Abbott  Inn  B  chewed  I  if. 

Bates. 

By  reading  the  above  backward,  observing  the 
phonetics,  and  bearing  in  mind  that  "flesh''  is  the 
equivalent  of  "meat/'  the  real  meaning  is  easily 
found.  It  cannot  be  said  that  this  specimen  exhib- 
its specially  clever  work  on  the  part  of  the  War 
Department  staff,  nor  is  it  likely  that  the  Confed- 
erate operator,  if  he  overheard  its  transmission, 
had  much  trouble  in  unraveling  its  meaning.  As  to 
this  we  can  only  conjecture. 

Lincoln^ s  Duplex  Theory 

During  the  war,  inventors  were  experimenting 
with  duplex  telegraphy.  The  subject  being  dis- 
cussed by  the  operators,  Mr.  Lincoln  remarked 
that  the  idea  was  paralleled  in  the  human  system. 
"For  instance,"  he  said,  "when  reading  a  book  my 
eyes  are  taking  a  photo  of  what  I  am  reading  and 
telegraphs  to  the  brain,  which  at  the  same  moment 
telegraphs  back  to  my  vocal  organs,  and  I  read 
aloud  the  words  and  sentences  on  which  my  eyes 
are  resting." 

Lincoln  Saves  Eckert 

(Captain)  Eckert,  accompanied  by  General 
Sanford  and  Governor  Brough,  went  to  the  War 
Department  one  afternoon,  and  they  were  ushered 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

into  the  Secretary's  presence,  and  —  stood  for  at 
least  ten  minutes  while  Stanton  continued  to  write 
at  his  deskj  without  looking  up  to  see  who  his  call- 
ers were.  Finally  Stanton  turned  and  asked  Eckert 
what  he  wanted. 

The  latter  replied,  "General  Sanford  tells  me 
that  you  have  sent  for  me  and  I  am  here." 

Then  Stanton,  in  a  loud  voice,  said  he  under- 
stood that  Captain  Eckert  had  been  neglecting  his 
duties,  and  was  absent  from  his  office  much  of  the 
time,  and  allowed  newspaper  men  to  have  access 
to  the  telegraphic  office;  also  that  he  was  an  unfit 
person  for  the  position  he  occupied. 

Eckert  replied  that  he  had  not  neglected  his 
duties — that  he  had  attended  to  them  strictly  and 
faithfully  5  that  any  statements  to  the  contrary 
were  false;  that  for  over  three  months  he  had 
been  at  his  post  of  duty  almost  constantly  and  had 
hardly  taken  off  his  clothes  during  that  time  except 
to  change  his  linen;  that  he  had  remained  in  his 
office  many  times  all  night  long,  and  that  he  sel- 
dom slept  in  his  bed  at  his  hotel,  and,  finally  inas- 
much as  it  appeared  that  his  services  were  not 
acceptable,  he  insisted  upon  his  resignation  being 
accepted. 

Just  then  Eckert  felt  an  arm  placed  on  his 
shoulder,  and,  supposing  it  to  be  that  of  General 
Sanford,  who  had  all  this  time  remained  standing 
with  him,  turned  around  and  was  surprised  to  find 
that,  instead,  it  was  the  hand  of  the  President,  who 
had  entered  the  room  while  the  discussion  was 
going  on. 

-4{  52  }>-- 


NCOLN  STORIES 


Lincoln,  still  with  his  hand  on  the  Captain's 
shoulder,  said  to  Stanton: 

"Mr.  Secretary,  I  think  you  must  be  mistaken 
about  this  young  man  neglecting  his  duties,  for  I 
have  been  a  daily  caller  at  General  McClellan's 
headquarters  for  the  last  three  or  four  months,  and 
I  have  always  found  Eckert  at  his  post.  I  have  been 
there  often  before  breakfast,  and  in  the  evening  as 
well,  and  frequently  late  at  night,  and  several 
hours  before  dawn  to  get  the  latest  news  from  the 
army.  Eckert  was  always  there,  and  I  never  ob- 
served any  reporters  or  outsiders  in  the  office. '^ 

Stanton  was  so  impressed  by  the  intercession  of 
Lincoln,  General  Sanford,  and  Governor  Brough 
that  he  quietly  took  from  his  desk  a  package  of 
papers  and  opening  one,  said,  "I  believe  this  is  your 
resignation,  is  it  not,  Sir^.^* 

Captain  Eckert  said  it  wasj  whereupon  Stanton 
tore  it  up  and  dropped  the  pieces  on  the  floor.  He 
then  opened  another  paper  and  said: 

"This  is  the  order  dismissing  you  from  the 
army,  which  I  had  already  signed,  but  it  will  not 
be  executed.''  Then  he  tore  up  the  order  of  dis- 
missal and  said: 

"I  owe  you  an  apology.  Captain,  for  not  having 
gone  to  General  McClellan's  office  to  see  for  my- 
self the  situation  of  affairs.  You  are  no  longer 
Captain  Eckert;  I  shall  appoint  you  a  Major  as 
soon  as  the  commission  can  be  made  out,  and  I  shall 
make  you  a  further  acknowledgment  in  another 


manner." 


So,  from  that  Sunday  afternoon  in  February, 

-<{  53  >- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

1862,  until  just  before  the  close  of  the  war,  Eck- 
ert's  military  title  was  "Major."  The  additional 
acknowledgment  referred  to  by  Secretary  Stanton 
consisted  of  a  horse  and  carriage  purchased  for 
Eckert's  use  in  the  performance  of  his  official 
duties. 

^^Then  You  Avoid  Collisions'^ 

One  day.  Secretary  Seward,  who  was  not  re- 
nowned as  a  joker,  said  he  had  been  told  that  a 
short  time  before,  on  a  street  crossing,  Lincoln  had 
been  seen  to  turn  out  in  the  mud  to  give  a  colored 
woman  a  chance  to  pass.  "Yes,''  said  Lincoln,  "it 
has  been  a  rule  of  my  life  that  if  people  would 
not  turn  out  for  me,  I  would  turn  out  for  them. 
Then  you  avoid  collisions. 


jj 


Barking  Dogs 

Lincoln  once  received  a  telegram  telling  of  a 
skirmish  in  Virginia  when  the  opposing  troops 
fought  the  enemy  to  a  standstill,  which  he  said 
reminded  him  of  two  dogs  barking  through  a 
fence,  continuing  their  barking  until  they  came  to 
a  gate,  when  both  ran  oif  in  opposite  directions. 

Snuffing  East  Wind 

Lincoln  told  this  story  once  of  an  old  slave  whose 
master  had  chided  him  many  times  for  taking  up 
so  much  of  his  time  with  preaching.  His  master 
told  him  he  would  whip  him  next  time  he  caught 
him  at  that  game.  The  slave  said,  "Well,  Marsa, 
I  just  can't  help  it — when  the  Bible  texts  come  in 

-=^{  54  >" 


NCOLN  STORIES 


my  mind,  I  must  speak  it.''  The  master  was  inter- 
ested to  know  whether  his  slave  really  knew  the 
Bible  well,  so  he  asked  him,  "Sam,  there  is  one 
text  in  the  Bible  that  I  never  could  understand — 
that  is  this — that  the  ass  snuflFeth  up  the  east  wind. 
Now  what  do  you  make  of  that  text?"  "Well, 
Marsa — I  thinks  that  ass  would  have  to  snuff  a 
long  time  before  she  got  fat." 

Political  Adullamites 

I  At  the  Cleveland  Convention  in  1864,  it  was 
expected  that  at  least  1,000  delegates  would  at- 
tend, but  the  newspapers  mentioned  that  at  no  time 
were  there  more  than  400.  This  reminded  the 
editor  of  a  New  York  paper  of  the  Bible  incident 
where  the  400,  in  debt  and  distress,  fled  to  the 
Cave  of  Adullam.  When  the  newspaper  contain- 
ing the  article  was  received,  Lincoln  asked  for  a 
copy  of  the  Bible,  so  that  he  could  refer  to  the 
text.  Albert  Johnson,  Stanton's  private  secretary, 
a  very  obsequious,  dapper  little  man,  offered  to 
get  a  Bible,  which  he  brought  in  and  laid  before 
the  President,  who  read  the  text  with  interest. 
Meantime,  Johnson  had  left  the  room.  Lincoln, 
getting  up  with  a  smile  on  his  face,  said:  "I  am 
always  interested  in  the  movements  of  Johnson, 
and  now  let  me  show  you  how  he  did  that."  Ac- 
cordingly, Lincoln  took  the  Bible  in  his  hands, 
presented  it  in  Johnson's  very  obsequious  style  to 
Major  Eckert  and  said,  "That  is  the  way  Johnson 
did  that."  This  created  a  laugh  among  the  listeners.    / 

-A  55  }>"  "^ 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


Supporting  Sheridan 

During  Grant^s  final  campaign,  the  President 
asked  about  Sheridan's  whereabouts  and  the  route 
taken  by  a  scout's  recent  report.  The  latter  had 
told  where  he  had  last  seen  Sheridan  when  he  re- 
ceived the  little  packet  he  brought,  and  added  that 
he  was  a  native  Virginian,  and  had  been  able  to 
come  through  the  city  of  Richmond  without  de- 
tection. After  some  further  conversation  and  an 
expression  of  thanks  from  the  President,  the  scout 
backed  out  of  the  tent  and  disappeared  forever,  so 
far  as  Cipher-Operator  Beckwith  knew.  The  other 
two  scouts  with  him  were  never  heard  from,  and 
were  probably  captured  by  the  enemy.  Sheridan's 
dispatch  was  most  welcome  to  Lincoln  and  Grant, 
and  20,000  horseshoes  and  other  much-needed 
supplies  were  soon  on  their  way  to  Pamunkey. 

War^s  Closing  Incidents 

In  March,  1865,  Grant  directed  Beckwith,  his 
cipher-operator,  to  report  to  the  President  at  City 
Point  and  keep  him  in  touch  by  telegraph  with  the 
army  in  its  advance  movement,  and  with  the  War 
Department  at  Washington.  It  may  therefore  be 
truthfully  said  that  for  the  next  two  weeks  out  of 
the  three  remaining  to  him,  Lincoln  "lived  in  the 
telegraph  office,"  for  he  and  Beckwith  were  almost 
inseparable,  and  the  wires  were  kept  busy  with  dis- 
patches to  and  from  the  President.  Beckwith's  tent 
adjoined  the  larger  tent  of  Colonel  Bowers,  which 
Lincoln  made  his  headquarters. 


NCOLN  STORIES 


It  was  by  telegraph  on  Monday,  after  reaching 
City  Point,  that  Lincoln  indorsed  Stanton's  order 
of  exercises  to  be  observed  at  Fort  Sumter  on  the 
anniversary  of  its  surrender,  in  which  many  not- 
ables, including  Colonel  Robert  Anderson,  Ad- 
miral Dahlgren,  Adjutant  General  Townsend, 
Captain  Gustavus  V.  Fox,  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  the  Rev.  R.  S.  Storrs,  and  others  were  to 
participate. 

The  following  telegram  shows  Lincoln's  close 
attention  to  details  and  the  tenacity  of  his  memory: 

City  Point,  Va.,  March  27,  1865 — 3.35  p.m. 
Hon.  Secretary  of  War,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Yours  enclosing  Fort  Sumter  order  received.  I  think 
of  but  one  suggestion.  I  feel  quite  confident  that  Sumter 
fell  on  the  13th,  and  not  on  the  14th  of  April,  as  you 
have  it.  It  fell  on  Saturday,  the  I3thj  the  first  call  for 
troops  on  our  part  was  got  up  on  Sunday,  the  14th,  and 
given  date  and  issued  on  Monday,  the  15th.  Look  up 
the  old  almanac  and  other  data  and  see  if  I  am  not  right. 

A.  Lincoln. 

The  President's  recollection  was  correct,  as  the 
records  proved.  Another  illustration  of  Lincoln's 
aptitude  for  fixing  dates  is  shown  in  his  remark  one 
day  that  it  was  his  habit  to  fasten  in  his  mind  the 
name  of  the  week-day  on  which  the  month  came 
in,  as  he  was  thus  reminded  that  the  1 5th  and  29th 
occurred  on  the  same  day  of  the  week.  He  then 
looked  forward  to  the  first  day  of  the  following 
month  as  falling  on  a  certain  day  of  the  week,  and 
so  on  through  the  whole  year. 

-4  SI  >- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Booth  and  Payne  Plotting 

While  in  prison,  the  conspirator  Payne  told 
Eckert  of  three  occasions  when  he  was  close  to 
Lincoln  and  could  have  shot  him  if  so  inclined. 
Once,  during  the  winter  of  1 8 65,  Booth  and  Payne 
had  walked  through  the  White  House  grounds  in 
the  daytime.  Booth  urged  Payne  to  send  a  card  in 
to  Lincoln,  using  any  name  that  he  might  see  fit, 
and  when  he  went  into  the  room  to  shoot  the  Pres- 
ident. Payne  said  he  refused,  and  Booth  berated 
him  soundly  for  cowardice. 

At  another  time,  April  1 1,  1 865,  when  Lincoln 
was  making  his  Louisiana  reconstruction  speech 
from  the  White  House  (which  I  heard),  Booth 
and  Payne  were  in  the  crowd  of  listeners,  and 
Booth  asked  Payne  to  take  out  his  revolver  and 
fire.  Payne  said,  "No,  I  will  not  do  it.'^  Again 
Booth  damned  Payne  and  urged  him  to  commit 
the  deed  then  and  there,  saying  that  the  crowd  was 
so  great  that  it  could  be  done  without  detection,  but 
Payne  was  obdurate,  not  yet  having  screwed  his 
courage  up  to  the  point  of  murder. 

The  third  occasion  was  under  the  following 
circumstances:  Payne,  in  prison,  suddenly  turned 
to  Eckert  and  said,  "Major,  were  you  not  the  man 
walking  with  the  President  through  the  White 
House  grounds  late  one  frosty  night  last  winter? '' 
Payne  said  that  he  had  secreted  himself  behind  the 
bushes  in  front  of  the  old  conservatory  where  the 
executive  offices  now  stand,  waiting  for  Lincoln  to 
return  from  the  War  Department.  There  had  been 

-4. 58  }^»- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 


a  light  rain,  and  it  then  got  colder,  and  there  was 
a  crust  of  ice  so  that  it  crackled  under  one's  foot. 
Payne  said  he  heard  footsteps  from  the  direction 
of  the  War  Department,  and  when  the  persons  got 
nearly  opposite  where  he  was  hiding,  he  saw  Lin- 
coln and  another  man  coming  along  the  walk,  and 
heard  the  President  say,  "Major, spread  out, spread 
out,  or  we  shall  break  through  the  ice." 

The  two  then  stopped,  and  Lincoln  told  of  an 
incident  when  he  was  a  young  man.  The  nearest 
grist-mill  to  his  father's  house  was  seven  or  eight 
miles  distant,  and  the  custom  was  to  take  the  grain 
to  the  mill,  wait  for  it  to  be  ground,  and  then 
carry  the  meal  back  home,  leaving  a  toll  for  the 
miller.  He  said  that  on  one  occasion,  during  a  very 
cold  spell,  he  and  a  party  of  neighbors  were  return- 
ing from  the  mill  with  their  bags,  and  they  came 
to  the  mill  brook,  which  was  frozen  over  so  that 
they  could  cross  on  it,  but  when  they  were  part  way 
over  the  ice  cracked,  and  some  one  said,  "Spread 
out,  spread  out,  or  we  shall  break  through  the  ice." 
Eckert  told  Payne  that  he  recalled  the  incident, 
that  he  was  with  Lincoln  that  night,  and  had 
walked  home  with  him  many  other  nights  from 
the  War  Department  to  the  White  House. 

Early  Morning  Incident 

John  C.  Hatter,  Secretary  Stanton's  messenger, 
told  me  in  July,  1907,  that  near  the  end  of  1864 
he  accompanied  the  President  from  the  War  De- 
partment to  the  White  House  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  The  weather  had  changed  from  rain  to 

-.0^  59  ^^■- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

sleetj  and  there  was  a  coat  of  ice  on  the  ground. 
When  the  gate  outside  the  War  Department  (op- 
posite the  present  executive  offices)  was  opened  to 
let  the  President  pass  through,  they  heard  a  sound 
as  of  some  one  running  along  the  fence,  and  over 
the  frozen  ground. 

Upon  examining  the  fence  they  found  three 
palings  removed,  which  Hatter  said  were  not  out 
of  place  in  the  evening  when  he  came  on  duty.  Mr. 
Lincoln  said,  "What  was  that  noise?''  Hatter 
answered  that  it  sounded  like  some  one  running 
through  the  bushes  toward  the  conservatory. 

The  President  asked  Hatter  not  to  say  anything; 
to  any  one  about  the  incident,  and  they  resumed 
their  walk  to  the  White  House. 

In  reply  to  my  inquiry  on  the  subject,  Rear- 
Admiral  Asa  Walker,  Superintendent  of  the  Naval 
Observatory,  records  the  following: 

January  21,  1865.  Began  raining  moderately  at 
8.50  A.M.  Changed  soon  into  sleet,  continuing  until 
9  P.M.  or  later.  Stopped  before  midnight.  The  forma- 
tion of  a  crust  on  the  snow  would  probably  not  be  men- 
tioned in  our  records. 

Eckert  Justifies  Lincoln^ s  Confidence 

Lincoln  was  very  fond  of  our  Chief,  Major 
Thomas  T.  Eckert,  and  when,  in  January,  1865, 
it  became  necessary  to  select  someone  to  repre- 
sent Lincoln  at  the  preliminary  meeting  with  the^ 
three  Confederate  Peace  Commissioners,  Stephens, 
Campbell,  and  Hunter,  at  City  Point,  instead  of 
having  General  Grant  receive  them,   President 

-<{  60  }^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

Lincoln  selected  Eckert  to  represent  him,  giving 
him  specific  written  instructions.  Lincoln's  Mes- 
sage to  Congress,  February  3,  1865,  tells  how 
faithfully  Eckert's  mission  was  fulfilled.  Robert 
Lincoln  says  of  this  incident,  "Father  selected 
^Tom  Eckert,'  as  he  called  him,  for  this  business 
because,  to  use  his  language,  as  nearly  as  I  can  re- 
member it,  ^he  never  failed  to  do  completely  what 
was  given  him  to  do  and  to  do  it  in  the  most  com- 
plete and  tactful  manner  and  to  refrain  from  do- 
ing anything  outside  which  would  hurt  his  mis- 
sion.'" 

Distressing  Mrs.  Lincoln 

Once,  not  more  than  sixty  days  before  his  death, 
Lincoln  came  into  the  telegraph  office  with  a  pic- 
ture of  himself,  which  had  been  addressed  to  his 
wife  and  sent  to  her  by  mail.  The  sender  had  added 
to  the  picture  a  rope  around  the  neck  and  then 
upward  tautly  drawn,  to  indicate  his  hellish  desire. 
Mr.  Lincoln  remarked  that  it  had  caused  Mrs. 
Lincoln  some  anxiety,  which  he  did  not  share, 
although  he  added  some  words  of  regret  that  any 
human  being  could  be  so  devoid  of  feeling  as  thus 
to  wound  an  innocent  woman.  He  said  that  he  had 
received  many  communications  of  like  import  and 
had  come  to  give  them  only  a  passing  thought. 

Mirth  at  Last  Cabinet  Meeting 

After  the  evident  collapse  of  the  Confederacy, 
and  especially  after  Appomattox,  Lincoln  was  de- 
lightfully jovial,  radiating  sunshine  whenever  he 

-^{61.}^=" 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

came  into  the  War  Department  telegraph  office, 
where  he  spent  literally  hours  at  a  stretch,  waiting 
for  more  news  from  Grant,  Sherman,  Meade,  or 
Sheridan  and  Thomas. 

At  the  last  cabinet  meeting,  April  13,  1865, 
following  an  interchange  of  views  over  certain  de- 
partmental matters,  there  came  up  for  discussion 
something  all  were  interested  in,  namely,  the  dis- 
position of  Jefferson  Davis,  who,  it  was  hoped  and 
expected,  would  soon  be  a  prisoner  of  war  in  the 
custody  of  our  troops  on  southern  soil. 

There  were  all  sorts  of  suggestions.  One  cabinet 
member  thought  hanging  was  none  too  severe. 
Another  wanted  him  locked  up  for  a  term  of  years. 
Each  member  of  the  cabinet  voiced  his  judgment. 
There  was  intense  curiosity  about  the  President's 
views.  Previously,  in  a  private  conversation,  he  had 
suggested  to  Assistant  Secretary  of  War  Charles  A. 
Dana,  afterward  editor  of  The  New  York  Sufiy 
who  had  asked  him  about  the  disposition  of  Jacob 
Thompson,  Secretary  of  War  in  Davis'  cabinet, 
arrested  at  Portland,  Maine,  in  trying  to  reach 
Canada,  that  (to  use  his  own  words)  : 

"When  you  have  got  an  elephant  by  the  hind 
leg,  and  he  is  trying  to  run  away,  it's  best  to  let  him 
run." 

Lincoln  listened  to  everyone,  and  when  it  came 
time  for  him  to  speak,  his  face  took  on  a  quizzical 
expression — a  signal  that  something  out  of  the 
ordinary  was  coming — and  then  he  said: 

"What  to  do  with  Jefferson  Davis  reminds  me 
of  an  Irishman  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  who,  dur- 

-4{  62  )^- 


NCOLN  STORIES 


ing  a  temperance  wave  signed  a  total  abstinence 
pledge.  He  withstood  all  pressure  to  get  him  to 
break  his  pledge.  On  one  extraordinary  occasion, 
however,  when  all  the  others  were  drinking,  and 
when  his  friends  bore  on  harder  than  ever,  Pat 
said,  4'11  not  break  me  pledge;  but  if  someone 
should  put  some  whiskey  in  me  glass  of  water 
unbeknownst-like  to  me,  shure,  Pd  be  all  the 
happier.' 

"And  so,"  said  Lincoln,  "if  it  could  be  managed 
that  Davis  could  escape  unbeknownst-like  to  the 
government,  it  might  be  a  happy  solution  of  the 


matter." 


n 


The  Man  With  Two  Mothers 


Some  years  ago,  Clarence  Bowen,  Vice-Presi- 
dent of  the  Genealogical  Society,  asked  me  to  de- 
liver an  address  before  the  Society  with  my  com- 
rades Tinker  and  Chandler  j  also  General  Wilson, 
historian  (not  the  captor  of  Jefferson  Davis).  D. 
O.  Mills  was  present  on  the  platform.  General 
Wilson  told  this  story,  which  will  be  recalled  by 
Mr.  Bowen. 

He  said  that  after  Lincoln's  nomination,  he  had 
occasion  to  go  to  Springfield  to  meet  Mr.  Lincoln, 
who  told  him  that  he  had  just  returned  from  a 
meeting  held  in  the  Springfield  insane  asylum,  and 
in  passing  through  one  of  the  halls,  a  little  old  man 
stood  in  the  doorway  and  said: 

"Why  do  you  not  salute  me?"  Mr.  Lincoln 
said,  "Why  should  I  salute  you?"  "Because  I  am 
Julius  Caesar,"  said  the  man.  "Ah!  Julius  Caesar 

-=^{  63  }^=- 


L    I    N    C    O    LN  STORIES 

— I  am  glad  to  meet  you,"  and  Lincoln  passed  on 
to  the  board  meeting.  After  the  meeting  he  again 
passed  through  the  hall  and  was  again  accosted  by 
the  same  little  man,  who  asked  why  he  did  not 
salute  him.  Mr.  Lincoln  replied,  as  before,  "Why 
should  I  salute  you?"  The  man  answered,  "Be- 
cause I  am  Napoleon  Bonaparte."  "Ah!  Napoleon, 
when  we  met  this  morning  you  told  me  you  were 
Julius  Caesar."  He  answered,  "But  that  was  by 
my  other  mother.  I  had  two  mothers,  you  know." 

^         hast  Story  in  the  Cipher  Room 

\  The  last  story  told  in  the  telegraph  office, 
vouched  for  by  Cipher-Operator  Tinker,  is  as  fol- 
lows: 

"On  April  14,  1865,  the  day  Lincoln  was  shot, 
he  came  to  the  telegraph  office  while  I  was  trans- 
mitting a  cipher  dispatch  that  was  couched  in  very 
laconic  terms.  Lincoln  read  the  dispatch,  and  after 
taking  in  the  meaning  of  the  terse  phrases,  he 
turned  to  me  and  with  his  accustomed  smile  said, 
^Mr.  Tinker,  that  reminds  me  of  the  old  story  of 
the  Scotch  lassie  on  her  way  to  market  with  a  bas- 
ket of  eggs  for  sale.  She  had  just  forded  a  small 
stream  with  her  skirts  well  drawn  up,  when  a  wag- 
goner on  the  opposite  side  of  the  stream  called  out, 
"Good  morning,  my  lassie;  how  deep's  the  brook 
and  what's  the  price  of  eggs?"  She  answered, 
"Knee  deep  and  a  sixpence." ' 

"Mr.  Lincoln,  still  with  a  smik,  lifted  his  coat 
tails  in  imitation  of  the  maiden  and  passed  into 
Secretary  Stanton's  room  adjoining. 

-°4  64  y^- 


LINCOLN  STORIES 

"That  was  the  last  time  I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln 
alive." 

My  War  Diary,  April  15,  1865,  the  day  Lin- 
coln died,  contains  the  following  entry: 

Abraham  Lincoln,  "First  pure,  then  peacable,  gentle, 
and  easy  to  be  entreated,  full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits, 
without  partiality,  and  without  hypocrisy." — James  3:17. 


